canard

English
WOTD – 5 September 2012

Etymology

Borrowed from French canard (“duck, hoax”).

etymology note

The primary English meaning of "canard" comes from the Medieval French expression “vendre un canard à moitié”, which literally means “to sell half a duck” or “to half-sell a duck”. This was perhaps the punch line to a joke. Eventually the punch line came to stand for the joke and then finally the word alone stood for the whole concept. The story may perhaps have gone like this: A duck seller is successful and content as the only duck seller on a street, selling his ducks for eight francs each. A new duck seller moves in across the street who steals all the business by offering his ducks for seven francs each. Then a price war ensues, back and forth, until the new duck seller is down to three francs for a duck. The original duck seller is beside himself with worry and frustration, but finally he puts up a big sign that says, “Two francs” and then in small print at the bottom “for half a duck.” In this way, to half-sell ducks may have come to mean tricking people with something that is literally true but misleading. It has this same metaphorical meaning in French. Now in English, it simply means anything that is deliberately misleading, a hoax.

Pronunciation

Noun

canard (plural canards)

  1. A false or misleading report or story, especially if deliberately so.
    • 2005, The New Yorker, 29 August, page 78.
      It’s a cinch, now that Spurling has cleared away a century’s worth of misapprehensions and canards.
    • 2014 August 20, “Why Jews are worried [print version: International New York Times, 22 August 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times‎:
      [W]hen a Hamas spokesman recently stood by his statement that Jews used the blood of non-Jewish children for their matzos – one of the oldest anti-Semitic canards around – European elites were largely silent.
  2. (aeronautics) A type of aircraft in which the primary horizontal control and stabilization surfaces are in front of the main wing.
  3. (transport, engineering) Any small winglike structure on a vehicle, usually used for stabilization.

Synonyms
  • (false or misleading report or story): hoax

Translations
false or misleading report or story

Anagrams

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French canard.

Pronunciation
  • Audio(file)

Noun

canard m (plural canards, diminutive canardje n)

  1. (dialectal, East and West Flanders, possibly obsolete) duck
  2. canard, hoax

French

Etymology

From Middle French canard, from Old French quanart (“duck”), from cane (“duck”) + -ard. Perhaps from the same onomatopeotic root as caner (“cackle, prattle”).

Alternatively from Middle French canard (“duck, male duck”), from cane (“duck, female duck”, literally “floater, little boat”), from Old French cane (“boat, ship; waterbird”), from Middle Low German kane (“boat”), from Proto-Germanic *kanô (“boat, vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *gan-, *gandʰ- (“vessel, tub”). Cognate with Norwegian kane (“swan-shaped vessel”), Dutch kano (“boat”), German Kahn (“boat”), Old Norse kæna (“little boat”), and possibly Old Norse knǫrr (“ship”) (whence also Late Latin canardus (“ship”), from Germanic; and Old English cnearr (“merchant ship”)). Related to French canot (“little boat”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ka.naʁ/
  • (Paris)
    (file)
  • (Paris)
    (file)
  • (La Tuque)
    (file)
  • (Canada)
    (file)
  • Rhymes: -aʁ
  • Homophone: canards

Noun

canard m (plural canards, feminine cane)

  1. duck (of either sex)
    • Erik Verdonck, Foie gras & canard: Les meilleures recettes d'Upignac, 2005, 12.
      Aujourd'hui, le réseau de restaurants franchisés permet de faire connaître d'autres produits à base de canard au grand public et d'inspirer les gourmets et les cuisiniers amateurs.
    • Hans Christian Andersen, Le vilain petit canard: Contes et Histoires pour enfants, Primento, 2014.
      Le pauvre canard en eut assez de toutes ces railleries et il décida de s'en aller.
  2. drake (male duck)
    • "Économie usuelle", in M. Matthieu Bonafous, De la culture des murier et de l'éducation des vers a soie, 1836, 756.
      Il est facile de distinguer le canard commun de la cane. Le mâle est plus gros que la femelle; il a aussi la voix plus forte et le plumage plus éclatant; mais le signe le plus saillant, c'est un assemblage de plusiers plumes retroussées que le mâle portes sur le croupion, à l'origine de la queue. Le canard et la cane sont propres à l'accouplement jusqu'à trois ou quatre ans; il faut les remplacer à cet âge par des sujest plus jeunes. Un canard suffit pour dix ou douze canes.
  3. (slang, familiar) newspaper
    Le canard enchaîné
    • Jérémy Bouquin, Entrailles, 2015, 6.
      Duval ne répond pas, il a lu le canard, cette affaire de cambriole.
    • Gérard Valbert, La saison des armours, 2000, 18.
      Usant de gros titres, le canard met en garde la population.
  4. (slang, familiar) a man who complies with every desire of his partner in order to avoid conflict
  5. (slang, familiar) a man who tries to attract women by offering them gifts
  6. lump of sugar dunked in coffee or brandy
  7. (music, colloquial) off-note

Quotations

Derived terms
Derived terms
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Descendants

Further reading

Anagrams

Italian

Noun

canard m (invariable)

  1. canard, hoax

Portuguese

Noun

canard m (plural canards)

  1. (aeronautics) canard (type of aircraft)
  2. (transport, engineering) canard (winglike structure on a vehicle)
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