# Cul de sac



## Insider

It's the name of one band. I have no idea what's the language. And also I don't know the meaning.

Perhaps, someone could help me?

So, _Cul De _Sac: what is it?

Thank you in advance.


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## edwingill

dead-end we also use cul-de sac


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## sandera

Bonsoir,
One can also possibly say that the only way out is the way that one came in....in effect....as edwingill said...it's a dead end!
S.


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## JamesM

While all culs-de-sac are dead-end streets, I don't believe all dead-end streets can be called a cul-de-sac.

In Southern California, at least, a cul-de-sac is a deliberate design with a large, round turn-around area at the end of the street with driveways leading off of it.

See this image for examples:  http://tinyurl.co.uk/pooq

A dead-end street, however, can have no houses on it at all, or can simply end because the street has been blocked off.  In suburban Southern California, a dead-end street will actually have a warning sign posted at its entrance, while a cul-de-sac will not, presumably because a dead-end street may make it difficult to turn around.


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## marget

JamesM said:
			
		

> While all culs-de-sac are dead-end streets, I don't believe all dead-end streets can be called a cul-de-sac.
> 
> In Southern California, at least, a cul-de-sac is a deliberate design with a large, round turn-around area at the end of the street with driveways leading off of it.
> 
> See this image for examples: http://tinyurl.co.uk/pooq
> 
> A dead-end street, however, can have no houses on it at all, or can simply end because the street has been blocked off. In suburban Southern California, a dead-end street will actually have a warning sign posted at its entrance, while a cul-de-sac will not, presumably because a dead-end street may make it difficult to turn around.


 
I think your description is accurate for southeastern Pennsylvania as well.


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## jimreilly

It is interesting that the OED (at least my old one) gives as its first definition the meaning in anatomy of a vessel, tube, or sac only open at one end, first usage cited in 1738; the meaning applied to a street has as the earliest cited usage one in 1819. This is certainly the more common meaning today!


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## Sangriabuena

Yeah I guess you can also use this term as when you're caught and can't really get out, since it's the end of the road so to speak, nowhere to turn. Also the name of a great movie


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## radjane dessama

_cul de sac_ is also _une impasse_


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## Insider

But I was looking through Macmilan Dictionary and I didn't find there any word from that phrase. And if I understood correctly you all try to say that this phrase was in English, am I right?

With the meaning there is no problem. I understand it clearly.

Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


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## Insider

But I was looking through Macmilan Dictionary and I didn't find there any word from that phrase. And if I understood correctly you all try to say that this phrase was in English, am I right?

With the meaning there is no problem. I understand it clearly.

Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


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## radjane dessama

Insider said:
			
		

> But I was looking through Macmilan Dictionary and I didn't find there any word from that phrase. And if I understood correctly you all try to say that this phrase was in English, am I right?
> 
> With the meaning there is no problem. I understand it clearly.
> 
> Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


 
_cul de sac_ in French means, literally, _the bag's arse_.  There's no way, as you know, of getting out of a bag's arse but by making _marche arrière _


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## jimreilly

Insider said:
			
		

> But I was looking through Macmilan Dictionary and I didn't find there any word from that phrase. And if I understood correctly you all try to say that this phrase was in English, am I right?
> 
> With the meaning there is no problem. I understand it clearly.
> 
> Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


The phrase is originally French, but is so widely used that it is listed in some English dictionaries and is commonly accepted as an English phrase. English is like that--voraciously co-opting everything usable!


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## mellerian

Id'like to add an other case, in the Lord of the Rings, the place where Bilbo Baggins lives is called "Bag End", translated as "Cul-de-sac" in the French version !


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## radjane dessama

You're right, Mellerian, Ledoux simply translated the expression literally.  Just as he turned _Baggins_ into _Sacquet_


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## Tabac

*Some people use cul-de-sac to refer to a deadend street with $1,000,000 homes.*


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## Thomas1

Insider said:
			
		

> [...]
> Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


 
The expression came in 1730s into English anatomical vocabulary and since around 1800 it got new meaning—dead-end street. This is a loan from French and it literary means-- bottom of a sack, French uses it in road and situations with no way out contexts. French language adopted it from Latin, I think. 

Where does the band you are interested in come from? This could explain from which language they took the name.




			
				jimreilly said:
			
		

> cul de sac in French means, literally, the bag's arse. There's no way, as you know, of getting out of a bag's arse but by making marche arrière


Ou vous pouvez essayer faire un trou dans le _cul _de sac.


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## marget

jimreilly said:
			
		

> The phrase is originally French, but is so widely used that it is listed in some English dictionaries and is commonly accepted as an English phrase. English is like that--voraciously co-opting everything usable!


 
I've also seen  cul-de-sac translated as "blind alley". As for English co-opting everything usable from French,  I reckon we've been doing it since 1066!


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## Insider

Tom,

Thank you for your explanation of origin. The band was formed in Boston, USA. So it looks like the phrase comes from English. 

But I was surprised that the phrase is absent in vocabularies, actually in one of the best vocabularies. 

Insider


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## jimreilly

It is a sad truth that no dictionary is completely comprehensive, infallible, or completely up-to-date! Also, some dictionaries are less prone to include words that still seem to be in another language.

So we can be thankful for Wordreference!


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## Thomas1

This one has it. Depending on the kind of a dictionary you use (bookish or computer or Net), there is some difference between them. Usually paper dictionaries don't contain much of the loanword glossary since they are restricted in respect of volume. To me the best ones are the Internet dictionaries, I can find almost everything in them and looking up a word in them is much faster. I could write much more about virtues and faults of dictionaries but we are going off the topic. 

BTW: I'm not sure about other languages but this is probably true about some of them. I know that cul-de-sac exists in Polish, of course, as a loanword derived from French. 

You may find this site interesting, here's what one of the members says about the name of their band:




> *AI:* What about the name of the band? How did you come up with that?
> *GJ: *I happened to like the Roman Polanski movie called Cul de Sac and I always thought it would be a good band name.


 
Tom


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## Insider

Thomas1,

I, as rather old-fashioned person, prefer paper dictionaries (I'm not fond of siiting in front of the monitro all the time   ). But also I agree with you about Internet dictionaries which are usually updated and comprehensive. 

BTW, Tnahk you for that link about Cul de Sac-band.


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## Hepi22

Radjane Dessama is right about cul-de-sac being French and also about it's meaning.  Cul means "ass" in French (excuse my language), and sac is of course a "bag".  So the real meaning of cul-de-sac is bag's ass.  But in France too we use the phrase to mean a dead end.


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## Arsenefurst

I believe the phrase is not a noun in French. One can be "en cul-de-sac", ie, as someone else posted, at the bottom of a sack, or in the bag's arse. In the UK it is usually appended to the name of a street to indict that it's a dead end.


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## carolineR

It is a noun in French.
It means exactly what Radjane said in post 11.
It can be used to describe something else than a street : un escalier/ un corridor en cul-de-sac. it can also be used figuratively : "Nous sommes dans un cul-de-sac =nous sommes dans une situation, une réflexion qui n'aboutissent à rien, qui ne permettent aucun avancement ou progrès.


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## fool4jesus

From what I understand, cul-de-sacs are used in the US specifically for the rounded ends of primarily suburban streets. I recall reading that the cul-de-sac is a relatively recent design element, perhaps since the 50's or 60's. Previously, suburban streets (what there were of them) were laid out primarily in a grid, like cities. But with widespread development of the suburbs themselves, this newer design with more back streets, unconnected in a grid pattern, was developed. This is when the term became popular.

I have heard many of society's ills being laid at the feet of the cul-de-sac, supposedly because it removed the sense of community. I live on Wingate Place with two cul-de-sacs, which is connected to the outside world only by two streets. Supposedly if each end was also connected with cross streets, we'd be closer to our neighbors on the parallel street. That's the theory, anyway.


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## Kyara78

First Cul-de-sac in french is not a phrase but a word. Literaly it means the bottom of a bag. 

It means all street/path/road/avenue  etc... when you go into a "_cul-de-sac_" you can go out only by the way you went into.

Exactly as a bag  : you go out a bag with the same way you went into!

K.


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## chics

Insider said:


> But I was looking through Macmilan Dictionary and I didn't find there any word from that phrase. And if I understood correctly you all try to say that this phrase was in English, am I right?
> 
> With the meaning there is no problem. I understand it clearly.
> 
> Also I'm interested in the origin of this phrase. If it was transfered here, to French-English forum, it would have an French origin, hasn't it?


 
*Cul-de-sac*: French, English...

Yes, the origin is French (it would be the end of a coat, like a potatoes coat).

It means a street where you must go in and out by the same side.

In Spanish is a "calle sin salida", in catalan "cul de sac"... We love expressions containing words like _cul _(in English: ass)!​


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## divina

JamesM said:


> While all culs-de-sac are dead-end streets, I don't believe all dead-end streets can be called a cul-de-sac.
> 
> In Southern California, at least, a cul-de-sac is a deliberate design with a large, round turn-around area at the end of the street with driveways leading off of it.
> 
> See this image for examples:  http://tinyurl.co.uk/pooq
> 
> A dead-end street, however, can have no houses on it at all, or can simply end because the street has been blocked off.  In suburban Southern California, a dead-end street will actually have a warning sign posted at its entrance, while a cul-de-sac will not, presumably because a dead-end street may make it difficult to turn around.



I've always heard "circle" for cul-de-sac...


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## JamesM

In Southern California, at least, a "circle" can actually be a street that goes full-circle through a neighborhood, with cul-de-sacs branching off on either side.

"Circle", though, is also used as a designation for a very short street that either ends in a cul-de-sac or a dead-end.

I don't think there's a direct corrolation between the two, at least around here.


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