different between gauche vs yokel

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French gauche (“left, awkward”), from gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish *walkan (“to full, trample”), from Proto-Germanic *walkan? (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”) and English walk, Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?o??/

  (chemistry sense only) IPA^(key): /?a??/, /?o??/

• Rhymes: -???

Adjective

gauche (comparative more gauche, superlative most gauche)

1. Awkward or lacking in social graces; bumbling.
   • 1836, Samuel Griswold Goodrich, The Outcast and Other Poems, "The Spirit Court of Practice and Pretence". page 102

     Seeking by vulgar pomp and gauche display

     In 'good society', to make her way

   • 1879, George Meredith, The Egoist, chapter XLVI

     She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is.

   • 1895, H.G. Wells, The Wonderful Visit, Chapter 18:

     "He's a trifle gauche" said Lady Hammergallow, jumping upon the Vicar's attention. "He neither bows nor smiles. He must cultivate oddities like that. Every successful executant is more or less gauche."

2. (mathematics, archaic) Skewed, not plane.
3. (chemistry) Describing a torsion angle of 60°.

Synonyms

• (lacking in social graces): graceless, tactless, unsophisticated, unpolished, gawky

Antonyms

• (lacking in social graces): adroit

Translations

Anagrams

• guache

French

Etymology

From gauchir (“warp, distort”), a conflation of Old French gauchier (“tread”) (from Frankish *walkijan, *walkan, cognate with English walk) + Old French guenchir (“deviate”) (from Frankish *wenkijan (“to sway, falter”)). Gauche replaced the original word for "left", senestre, in the sixteenth century.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?o?/

Adjective

gauche (plural gauches)

1. left
2. awkward, gawky
3. clumsy

Noun

gauche f (plural gauches)

1. the left, the left-hand side

gauche m (plural gauches)

1. (boxing) a left-hander, a southpaw

Antonyms

• (left): droite

Derived terms

Further reading

• “gauche” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Norman

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

Noun

gauche f (plural gauches)

1. (Jersey) left

English

Etymology

1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob; alternatively, from dialectal English yokel (“woodpecker”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?j??.k?l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?jo?.k?l/
• Rhymes: -??k?l

Noun

yokel (plural yokels)

1. (derogatory) A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated and/or naive.

   Synonyms: boor, bumpkin, country bumpkin, joskin, hillbilly, hick, peasant, provincial, rube, rustic, yahoo

   • 1838, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, London: Richard Bentley, Volume 2, Chapter 30, p. 81,^[1]

     “ […] my opinion at once is […] that this [robbery] wasn’t done by a yokel?eh, Duff?”

     “Certainly not,” replied Duff.

     “And, translating the word yokel, for the benefit of the ladies, I apprehend your meaning to be that this attempt was not made by a countryman?” said Mr. Losberne with a smile.

   • 1895, Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, New York: Appleton, Chapter 8, p. 88,^[2]

     He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.

   • 1985, Peter De Vries, The Prick of Noon, Penguin, Chapter 6, p. 119,^[3]

     I went to New York and bought myself a secondhand stretch limousine twenty-eight feet long, calculated to reduce the most blasé country-club sophisticates to bug-eyed yokels.

   • 1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, London: Phoenix, 1994, Chapter 8.6, p. 560,^[4]

     ‘You may think that because you live in Brahmpur you have seen the world?or more of the world than we poor yokels see. But some of us yokels have also seen the world?and not just the world of Brahmpur, but of Bombay. […] ’

Derived terms

• yokelry

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Kolye, Lokey, koley, kyloe