different between jewel vs ouche

English

Etymology

From Middle English juel, jewel, juwel, jeuel, jowel, from Anglo-Norman juel, from Old French jouel, joel, joiel, of uncertain origin. Perhaps based ultimately on Latin gaudium (“joy”), or on Latin iocus (“joke; jest”). Compare Medieval Latin jocale.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d?u??l/, /?d?u?l/, /?d???l/
• (Canada, General American) IPA^(key): /d?ul/, /?d?u.?l/
• Rhymes: -u?l, -??l
• Homophone: joule

Noun

jewel (plural jewels)

1. A precious or semi-precious stone; gem, gemstone.
2. A valuable object used for personal ornamentation, especially one made of precious metals and stones; a piece of jewellery.
   • ante 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Cymbeline, act I, scene vi, lines 188–9:

     Iachimo: 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels / Of rich and exquisite form, their values great.

3. (figuratively) Anything precious or valuable.
4. (horology) A bearing for a pivot in a watch, formed of a crystal or precious stone.
5. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genus Hypochrysops.
6. (slang) The clitoris.
   • 2008, Another Time, Another Place: Five Novellas

     The area between her eyebrows wrinkled with the increasing circular motions her two fingers made on her jewel.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:gemstone

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

jewel (third-person singular simple present jewels, present participle jewelling or jeweling, simple past and past participle jewelled or jeweled)

1. To bejewel; to decorate or bedeck with jewels or gems.

Translations

Middle English

Noun

jewel

1. Alternative form of juel

English

Alternative forms

• nouch, ouch, owch

Etymology

From Middle English ouche, from nouche, which in phrases like a nouche was re-analyzed as an ouche. From Anglo-Norman nusche and Old French nusche (with metanalysis), from a Germanic source; compare German Nusche, Proto-Germanic *hnuts.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /a?t?/

Noun

ouche (plural ouches)

1. (poetic) A brooch or clasp for fastening a piece of clothing together, especially when valuable or set with jewels.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XX:

     and the horse [was] trapped in the same wyse, down to the helys, wyth many owchys, i-sette with stonys and perelys in golde, to the numbir of a thousande.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ii:

     a Persian mitre on her hed / She wore, with crownes and owches garnished [...].

   • With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of Israel: thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold.

   • 1896, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Story of Ung’, Seven Seas:

     There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung down at thy cave for a gift, / Nor dole of the oily timber that strands with the Baltic drift; / No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of amber pale; / No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the stranded whale.