double entendre
7
8.4
- noun
- /ˈdʌbəl ɒnˈtɒndrə/
- NSFW
:
doble sentido
- The movie cleverly used a double entendre that had the audience laughing at its risqué implication.
Characters make double entendres in English, French and Russian.
- Characters make double entendres in English, French and Russian.
- And that closeness part is the trunk of the intimacy tree, double entendre noted.
Examples
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That's a double entendre.
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Sure, the name is a double entendre, but the Rack Shack's can be taken that way too.
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Characters make double entendres in English, French and Russian.
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- Do you get the double entendre?
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- Is that a double entendre?
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So, all these double entendres...
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One last thing, there was something today about how Reagan made a double entendre of this nature.
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I have no doubt that this review is going to be laden with double entendres.
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I've spent 53 years trying to understand double entendre; it's hopeless.
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But there's a little bit of a double entendre there, isn't there?
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Synonyms
9
9.9
A word or phrase with two meanings, often funny and slightly rude
Antonyms
3
4.9
People understand words in their exact meaning without hidden or deeper ideas
How Risque
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'double' = twofold and 'entendre' = a (usually) double meaning, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer 'an expression with two meanings, often risqué'. The concept maps onto common cross-linguistic patterns (e.g. Spanish 'doble sentido', French 'double sens'), making the construction immediately interpretable.
Etymology
Double entendre comes from French and literally joins double (two) and entendre (to mean). It names a line that can be read in 'two meanings', often one innocent and one 'naughty', so that's why it means a phrase with a hidden, 'naughty' meaning.