Chic

Fashionable; comme il faut; the mode. This is an archaic French word in vogue in the seventeenth century. It really is the Spanish chico, little, also a little boy, and chica, a little girl or darling. Similarly, wee in Scotch is a loving term of admiration and pride. (Chic is an abbreviation of the German geschickt, apt, clever.)

“Jʹuse de mots de lʹart, je met en marge hic;

Jʹespere avec le tems que jʹentendrai le chic.”

Les Satyres de Du Lorens, xii. p. 97.

Avoir le chic. To have the knack of doing the thing smartly.

Chicard and chicandard = elegant, de grand style, are very common expressions with artists.

· ·

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.