dame-jeanne

French

FWOTD – 21 October 2021

Etymology

Literally, “Lady Jane”; the name is an alteration of jane.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dam.ʒan/

Noun

dame-jeanne f (plural dames-jeannes)

1. demijohn (bottle)
   • 1844, Alexandre Dumas, Les trois mousquetaires‎^[1]:

     Les trois autres s’occupaient à décoiffer une énorme dame-jeanne de vin de Collioure; c’étaient les laquais de ces messieurs.

     The three others were busy uncorking an enormous demijohn of Collioure wine; they were these gentlemen's lackeys.

   • 1875, Émile Zola, La faute de l'abbé Mouret‎^[2]:

     […] Seulement, le soir, après le dîner, on avait posé sur la table une dame-jeanne d’une cinquantaine de litres, qu’il s’agissait de vider, avant d’aller se mettre au lit. Ils étaient dix, et déjà le père Bambousse renversait d’une seule main la dame-jeanne, d’où ne coulait plus qu’un mince filet rouge.

     […] but, in the evening, after dinner, a demijohn of around fifty litres had been placed on the table, which they had set to emptying before going to bed. There were ten of them, and already old Bambousse knocked over the demijohn with one hand, and only a small red trickle came out.

Descendants

• → Arabic: دَمَجَانَة (damajāna), جَمَدَانَة (jamadāna), دَامَجَانَة (dāmajāna)
• → Catalan: damajoana (calque)
• → English: demijohn (calque)
  • → Czech: demižon
  • → German: Demijohn
  • → Hungarian: demizson
  • → Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: демѝжо̄н

    Latin script: demìžōn

• → Finnish: damešaani
• → Italian: damigiana (calque)
  • → Bulgarian: дамаджа́на (damadžána)
  • → Romanian: damigeană
• → Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic script: демѝжа̄на, демѝја̄на, демѐја̄на, димѝжа̄на

  Latin script: demìžāna, demìjāna, demèjāna, dimìžāna

• → Spanish: damajuana (calque)
• → Swedish: damejeanne
• → Venetan: damigiana (calque)
  • → Greek: νταμιτζάνα (ntamitzána)
  • → Ottoman Turkish: داماجانه (damacana)
    • Turkish: damacana

Further reading

• “dame-jeanne”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Vollers, Karl (1897) “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der lebenden arabischen Sprache in Aegypten”, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft‎^[3] (in German), volume 51, pages 313–314