crémaillère

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French crémaillère.

Noun

crémaillère (plural crémaillères)

1. An indented or zigzagging line of entrenchment used in fortification.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “crémaillère”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

French

Alternative forms

• cramaillère, cramaillier (archaic)

Etymology

From Old French cramail +‎ -ière, from Latin cramalius, cramalium, cramaculus, cramaculum (“trammel”), alteration of cremasculus, cremasculum (“trammel”), diminutive of cremaster from Ancient Greek κρεμαστήρ (kremastḗr).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʁe.ma.jɛʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

crémaillère f (plural crémaillères)

1. trammel; a type of hook from which a cooking pot can be suspended over a hearth fire at different heights as needed for the right cooking temperature
2. (rail transport) rack, rack-and-pinion
3. (military) crémaillère (indented or zigzagging line of entrenchment used in fortification)
4. ellipsis of pendaison de crémaillère; housewarming

Derived terms

• pendaison de crémaillère
• pendre la crémaillère

Descendants

• → Catalan: cremallera
• → English: crémaillère
• → Spanish: cremallera

Further reading

• “crémaillère”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.