mèche

See also: Meche, meche, and meché

French

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old French mesche, via Late Latin *micca or Vulgar Latin *mysca, alteration of Latin myxa (“sebesten tree”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɛʃ/

• Audio; “une mèche”:

  (file)

Noun

mèche f (plural mèches)

1. wick (of candle)
2. fuse (of a bomb)
3. lock, tuft (of hair); streak (of colour, etc., in hair)
   • 1829, Victor Hugo, Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné, section XLVIII:

     Mes cheveux, coupés au hasard, tombaient par mèches sur mes épaules, et l’homme en chapeua à trois cornes les époussetait doucement avec sa grosse main.

     My hair, cut at random, fell in clumps on to my shoulders, and the man in the tricorn hat brushed them away softly with his fat hand.

4. (medicine) packing
5. drill bit
6. (music, lutherie, bowmaking) hair
7. cracker, popper, snapper (string tied to the end of a whip)
8. (nautical) rudderpost, (rudder) post

Derived terms

• être de mèche
• vendre la mèche

Descendants

• → Italian: mèche
• → Portuguese: mecha
• → Sicilian: mecciu
• → Turkish: meç

Etymology 2

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

Noun

mèche f (plural mèches)

1. (Louisiana, Cajun) marsh

Further reading

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

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French mèche.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛʃ/^*
• Rhymes: -ɛʃ

Noun

mèche f (invariable)

1. streak (in the hair)

Further reading

• mèche in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana