I Am Looking For A French Word Resembling "Decoletage". Does Anybody Have Any Ideas?

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Will Martin Profile
Will Martin answered
I think the word is DECOLLETAGE. There should be an accent over the first "e", which I don't know how to produce in this program, but you probably know what I mean - a little forward-slanting line.

Decolletage is a noun based on the French word decollete (accents on both "e"s). It refers to the neckline of a woman's dress, blouse etc and means low cut/ plungung/ showing cleavage. It comes from the word col, which means collar. The prefix de- in French means without, so decollete basically means without a collar.

Example sentences might be: "Her dress was very decollete" or "her dress had a lot of decolletage," though it would probably sound a bit pretentious in English. I think people used to use French words and phrases in English more than they do today.
thanked the writer.
Stephane
Stephane commented
Actually the french word decolletage has nothing to do with fashion. It is a technical term that more or less means 'threading'. Décolleté would be the most suitable translation of decolletage in English. My guess is that decolletage is a pretentious deformation of the French décolleté.
PS: I came to that page looking for 'decoletage' as I heard with strange word on a TV show. Born and raised in France, I never heard this word before! I had to look for decolletage in a dictionary to see what it means!
Anonymous Profile
Anonymous answered
Décolletage is a technical term used in the metalwork industry which roughly means cutting or free-cutting (of metal sheets)

So, only if you wanted to craft a sexy armor, you would cut away (décolletage) from the breast protection plates a plunging cleavage (décolleté). Not sure that such an armor would be very efficient in protecting the body inside, though...

Y.

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