poissarde means A fishwife, especially in France; specifically, any of the Parisian fishwives or market-women who led riots during the French Revolution.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, poissarde ranks #921 of 12,955 for Most Exacting Words, #1,076 of 12,835 for Scariest Words, #1,258 of 12,835 for Funniest Words, #1,493 of 12,956 for Most Storied Words.
poissarde is pronounced /ˈpwasɑːd/.
Why “poissarde” is a great word
A coarse, vociferous fish-seller, specifically one of the Parisian market-women of the lower classes who became a formidable force in the street uprisings of the French Revolution. From French poissarde, from poisse (a derivative of poisson, "fish") + the pejorative suffix -ard, thus literally meaning "fish-seller" with a coarse or vulgar connotation. Unlike a marchande (a neutral term for any female merchant) or an aristocrate (her born enemy from a world of silken remove), the poissarde was a creature of the gutter and the barricade, defined by her class, her trade, and her revolutionary fury. One hears the slap of wet mackerel on a marble slab, smells the briny reek of the market stall, and sees her in a screaming knot at the gates of the palace—the raw, living muscle of an uprising, where political theory found its voice in curses.
Etymology
From French poissarde.
noun
- A fishwife, especially in France; specifically, any of the Parisian fishwives or market-women who led riots during the French Revolution.“[T]he destruction of the most ancient Empires on record has nothing more wonderful, nor of more sounding improbability, than the demolition of this Great Nation […] Even the Amazons were but the poissardes of the Day […].”
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