marotte

See also: Marotte

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French marotte.

Noun

marotte (plural marottes) (Euro-English)

1. A jester's dummy, bauble, or his sceptre.
   • 2020, Kevin Furbank, Fairport Convention On Track. Every Album, Every Song, Tewkesbury: Sonicbond Publishing, →ISBN, page Google 67:

     The cover seemed to sum it all up—a depressed jester gazing forlornly at his ‘marotte’ as if desperate for inspiration.

2. A quirk, an obsession.
   • 2004, Gottfried Semper, translated by Harry Francis Malgrave, Style in the technical and tectonic arts, or, Practical aesthetics, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, →ISBN, page 286:

     They were a substitute for real tapestries, which could not be obtained in sufficient numbers, or for which there was neither the time nor the skill to embroider them with images appropriate to the occasion. It is true that this view contradicts that of Raoul-Rouchette, who remains faithful to his marotte, which admits only paintings on wood, because they are called tabulae.

   • 2011, Guy Chapman, The Dreyfus Trials, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page Google 99:

     During the summer Henry had been on the best of terms with his chief, but he had been first irritated, and then alarmed at Picquart’s fixation on Esterhazy, his ‘marotte’.

French

FWOTD – 5 September 2016

marotte (sense 2)

Etymology

Diminutive of Marie, 15th c.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ma.ʁɔt/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

marotte f (plural marottes)

1. bauble (grotesque sceptre carried by a jester)
   • 1842, Aloysius Bertrand, “Octobre”, in Gaspard de la nuit, livre VI — Silves, page 176:

     Voici venir la Saint-Martin et ses brandons, Noël et ses bougies, le jour de l’an et ses joujoux, les Rois et leur fête, le Carnaval et sa marotte.

     Here come St Martin's Day and its torches, Christmas and its candles, New Year's Day and its toys, the Three Kings and their feast day [Epiphany], Carnival and its jester's bauble.

2. (by extension) a puppet attached to a wooden stick
3. (by extension) a wooden head used to model headgear
4. (informal, figuratively) an obsession

   Elle parle de musique sans arrêt, c’est sa marotte.

   She talks about music all the time; it's her obsession.

Synonyms

• (obsession): idée fixe

Descendants

• → English: Marotte
• → German: Marotte

Further reading

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