en.wiktionary.org

gauche - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from French gauche (“left, awkward”), from gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish *walkan (“to full, trample”), from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”) and English walk, Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk.

gauche (comparative more gauche, superlative most gauche)

  1. Awkward or lacking in social graces; bumbling.

    • 1836, Samuel Griswold Goodrich, The Outcast and Other Poems‎[1], The Spirit Court of Practice and Pretence, page 102:

      Seeking by vulgar pomp and gauche display
      In 'good society', to make her way

    • 1879, George Meredith, “chapter XLVI”, in The Egoist:

      She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is.

  2. (mathematics, archaic) Skewed, not plane.
  3. (chemistry) Describing a torsion angle of 60°.
  • (antonym(s) of “lacking in social graces”): adroit

awkward, bumbling

From gauchir (“to bend, dodge, warp”), a conflation of Old French gauchier (“to tread”) (from Frankish *walkijan, *walkan, cognate with English walk) + Old French guenchir (“to deviate”) (from Frankish *wenkijan (“to sway, falter”)). Gauche replaced the original Latin-derived word for "left", senestre, in the sixteenth century. Compare Walloon gåtche.

gauche (plural gauches)

  1. left
    Synonym: senestre (dated)
  2. awkward, gawky, clumsy
    Synonyms: empoté, lourd, maladroit

gauche f (plural gauches)

  1. the left, the left-hand side

gauche m (plural gauches)

  1. (boxing) a left-hander, a southpaw
  • (antonym(s) of “left”): droite

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

gauche f (plural gauches)

  1. (Jersey) left