soucoupe

English

Etymology

From French soucoupe, ellipsis of soucoupe plongeante (“diving saucer”).

Noun

soucoupe (plural soucoupes)

1. A type of small submarine designed to hold two people.
   • 1964, Westways, volume 56, Automobile Club of Southern California, page 21, column 2:

     Dr. Francis P. Shepard, Professor of Submarine Geology, who has been studying the canyons from the surface for thirty years, remarked: “I learned more in my three dives in the soucoupe.”

   • 1965, Oceanus, volume 12, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:

     In the meantime suspended underwater cameras and deep submersibles, both the bathyscaphs ‘Trieste’ and ‘Archimede’ and the soucoupe of Cousteau have been employed extensively in attempts to identify various scattering layers.

   • 1984, Zdeněk Kukal, Atlantis in the Light of Modern Research, Elsevier Science Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 48:

     The soucoupes are easily manageable and movable. Their crews can stop them anywhere and even collect samples from the sea floor. The soucoupe uses two water jets to move horizontally.

   • 1986, Harold E. Edgerton, Sonar Images, Prentice-Hall, →ISBN, page 54:

     An excellent TV movie was made, including a visit to the wreck in his underwater soucoupe. A passenger in the soucoupe was Sheila MacBeth Mitchell of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was an 18-year-old nurse aboard the Britannic at the time of its sinking.

   • 1990, Submersible Vehicle Systems Design, Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, →ISBN, page 54, column 2:

     The 1950’s also saw the development of underwater systems by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, including his soucoupe (diving saucer), Denice, which was one of the first shallow-diving submersibles to be used in the United States during the mid-1960’s (Fig. 9). The soucoupe could take two people to depths of 300 m (1000 ft).

Further reading

• SP-350 Denise on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Calque of Italian sottocoppa, from sous (“under”) +‎ coupe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /su.kup/

• Audio:

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Noun

soucoupe f (plural soucoupes)

1. saucer

Derived terms

• soucoupe volante

Descendants

• → English: soucoupe

Further reading

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