# Gueuse



## finaud

I have seen  in 'cassell's a definition of gueuse as 'bitch' ( on top of lingot, wench, beggar,prostitute belgian beer etc). My question is, does 'gueuse' literally mean bitch(synonym de chienne)or is it being used figuratively here?


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## Keith Bradford

I don't think I'd ever translate it that way, because *gueuse* (feminine of gueux, nothing to do with iron ingots and only distantly related to beer) is a distinctly dated term. First registered in 1452 and marked "Vieux" in Robert. Whereas _bitch_ is just too 20th-century and doesn't often mean the same anyway. _Gueuse_ = poor and of loose morals; _bitch_ = ill-tempered.

_*Slut, hussy, trollop*_ are more in the register, I suggest.

No, it's not a female dog either.


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## finaud

Well, it certainly says  gueuse -wench, bitch here. Perhaps we await other opinions. ( As for 'lingot', I thought gueuse was also translated as 'pig iron'. I use it in that context,   or is this incorrect?)


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## arundhati

The usual meaning of "gueuse" is not that pejorative, and it generally refers simply to a poor woman.


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## doinel

Le mot gueuse s'employait dans l'expression : courir la gueuse= mener une vie de débauché.


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## Keith Bradford

The pig iron word is different - with a different etymology and meaning.
The beer and the beggar both come from the same origin.


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## djweaverbeaver

Gueuse is old-fashioned and when used nowadays it's often cares a humoristic tone, much like wench.  I was going to mention _*courir la gueuse*_, but I see that _Doinel_ already beat me to the punch.  It can be translated as "to go wenching" or "to go gallivanting".  A synonym is *courir le jupon*.


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## finaud

Keith Bradford said:


> The pig iron word is different - with a different etymology and meaning.
> The beer and the beggar both come from the same origin.



But the spelling and pronounciation are exactly the same?   As  concerns the word 'bitch' I suspect its literally used. Frankly  'cassell's is a very 'prudish' dictionary that hardly incudes 'vulgar' language, but that is just my perception.


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## pointvirgule

arundhati said:


> The usual meaning of "gueuse" is not that pejorative, and it generally refers simply to a poor woman.


From the _Dictionnaire de l'Académie française_, 1st edition:


> On dit, d'Une femme de mauvaise vie, que _C'est une gueuse_.


Pejorative enough for you?

Those who read Academician Maurice Druon's _Les Rois maudits_ (or saw one of the TV series) remember with fondness the character Robert d'Artois, who referred to his aunt as "Mahaut la gueuse, Mahaut la truie". It is certainly meant as derogatory. 

I agree with Keith Bradford's suggestions in #2.


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## Keith Bradford

finaud said:


> But the spelling and pronounciation are exactly the same? As concerns the word 'bitch' I suspect its literally used. Frankly 'cassell's is a very 'prudish' dictionary that hardly incudes 'vulgar' language, but that is just my perception.


 
Finaud, just because two words look alike and sound alike, it doesn't mean they're the same word. What matters is _*meaning*_ and etymology. For example, bat (sports instrument) and bat (flying mammal) are two entirely different words.


Here we have three different words:

*Gueuse* (feminine of gueux) from the middle Dutch _guit,_ a rogue. This means 1. a beggar-woman, 2. a poor woman, 3. a woman of loose morals.
_*Gueuse*_ from Low German _gans_, a goose. This means 1. pig-iron, 2. an iron ingot, 3. a sand-mould.
_*Gueuse*_ (or Gueuze) a word invented ca. 1900 from the middle Dutch _guit,_ a rogue. This means Belgian beer.
None of them has anything to do with dogs of either sex. 
PS: if your dictionary censors itself, get another dictionary.


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## finaud

Thank you, everybody. I actually wanted to request keith Bradford for the origins of the words  but he has pre-empted my request. Still, if anybody can enlighten us further I would  be grateful.


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## bh7

There is a different but related meaning of 'gueuse' in history.
[18th century] derogatory term used by royalists for the French republic ("Marianne la Gueuse")


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## Elle Paris

arundhati said:


> The usual meaning of "gueuse" is not that pejorative, and it generally refers simply to a poor woman.


 
I agree;
"Les monarchistes ont longtemps qualifié de *Gueuse* la République française. *Brassens* rappelle très souvent la dignité (cf. vers suivant) des femmes méprisées *...'*
*"More generally, George Brassens's narrator recognises the power of the church to stir up ... as la gueuse (the beggar woman), Leo Ferre's song of the same name (1958) ..."*


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## WME

Gueuse is indeed dated and is the feminin for "gueux", which basically means beggar. It MAY convey a derogative meaning, see for instance the Littré
_Au féminin. Très familièrement, une coquine, une femme qui vit mal.
Monsieur, défiez-vous des gueuses de Paris, HAUTEROCHE, Espr. foll. I, 1.
La querelle [du fils aîné du comte d'Auvergne et du chevalier de Quélus] était venue pour du cabaret et des gueuses, SAINT-SIMON, 43, 259._
But it's not as strong as bitch would be.
I would go for "punk", in an also dated meaning.


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## Elle Paris

say, maybe "wench" would be closer to it- both meaning and time frame...wouldn't it work?


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## finaud

I have just seen a discussion of the word 'bitch' (among others) in relation to the term gueuse which was apparently a derogatory term for the french republic among royalists  (thread 'la gueuse')

la Gueuse


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## SteveD

I have only ever seen the Belgian beer written as "Gueuze".  However:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickporjr/2452268125/


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## Elle Paris

bh7 said:


> There is a different but related meaning of 'gueuse' in history.
> [18th century] derogatory term used by royalists for the French republic ("Marianne la Gueuse")


That would be "the wench": the new republic was sneered at by the royalists and the symbol Marianne (the French equivalent of the American Uncle Sam) was called the peasant wench by the nobles who were left and the royalists who wanted a return to monarchy.

Wench is really the best translation both in time line and in meaning.

The gueuse/wench was a lower class poor woman struggling to survive, working, if at all, in borderline jobs in taverns yes...which could easily lead to prostitution of course, but also in such jobs as part time scullery mail, or selling flowers and, later, matches, on street corners, church steps and such.


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## mgarizona

I like "strumpet Marianne" for Marianne la Gueuse myself.

(And it's not only Royalists who employed the image. Working an anarchist bent in his 20's, René Char could nod obliquely to it: "_Ce qui nous tient à cœur c'est la destruction totale de l'édifice oú vient périodiquement se pencher à une fenêtre condamnée la vieille fille tricolore._")


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## Elle Paris

strumpet? The blue girl Smurf??? Strumphette? 

As to your quote, the French, on whichever side, will say the the old lady Marianne is dusty, or still has flowers in her hair, waiting for her prince charming...whichever picture they care to paint to illustrate a point. Marianne is not the discussion. Le gueuse, the French sort of Eliza Doolittle, is. La Goulu, or Edith Piaf when she sang in the streets of Paris for coins thrown from windows... the artist's model, the struggling lower class woman...the wench who tries to make it.


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## mgarizona

There's a bit of a tangle in yr thinking, I'm afraid. 

If you want to propose 'wench' as a populist moniker for the 'working class heroine,' that's fine. And if you want to propose _gueuse _as the French counterpart to that ideal, that's between you and the Francophones. 

But Marianne was originally only called "la gueuse" by those with deep-seated antipathy to all things populist. Any later echo of it is sure sign that the speaker has no respect for the Republic whatsoever. For them Marianne is not a heroine, she's a slut. This is precisely why I don't think as relatively neutral a word as 'wench' does the job in this context. "Strumpet" does. 

At least it does for me, who has managed to remain blissfully ignorant of all things Smurf.


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## Elle Paris

"Wench" and "la gueuse'' both have the shady ready-to-do-almost-anything-to-get-by feel to them. If Marianne was called one or the other it would mean about the same and I am not in disagreement with you on that point coming from the royalists. But we are not talking about what Marianne is nor for whom but which word might be closest to "la gueuse", and, even when there might be a bit of a slut conotation in "la gueuse" so can there be in "wench".


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## funnyhat

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think populism was exactly the point of contention for the royalists here. My understanding is that during the 19th century, the Republic was supported above all by people of a secular bent, and the monarchy was most strongly supported by devout Catholics. From the 1880s onward, the Republic progressively loosened ties with the Catholic Church until it completely broke ranks in 1905. To me, it would seem to make more sense to understand _la Gueuse_ as being a woman of low moral standing (having disregarded the teachings of the Church), rather than just being poor.


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## Elle Paris

Yes, the person using the term would think she was a poor woman with low moral standards whether it were true or not, much like the person in the tavern would call the poor barmaid a wench... or the "gentleman" who spoke in the same way of the flower seller on the street corner or when referring to his cleaning woman as "that wench".


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## Cath.S.

Un _gueux_ est un pauvre - et _gueuser_ signifiait _mendier_ - mais une_ gueuse_ est une putain.
Les royalistes haïssaient les deux.
Devant la comparaison entre la République et une gueuse, je vois l'image d'une classe sociale (la bourgeoisie) qui se serait vendue au bas peuple pour accéder au pouvoir.
Je suggère_ slattern _qui allie les idées de laisser-aller moral et physique : pour les aristocrates de cette époque, dépravation, pauvreté et saleté allaient de pair.


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## mgarizona

As Cath points out, the feminine _gueuse _shirks off all sense of beggarliness and poverty and zeroes in on a very simple idea, which the _Robert _gives as "_femme de mauvaise vie_."

Elle Paris though has the word "wench" entirely backwards. Barmaids and cleaning women are 'wenches' because that's what wenches are: "A female servant, maid-servant, serving-maid" (OED) "Gentlemen" don't call them 'wenches' because they assume these women have low moral standards, they call them that because they are wenches by profession. Wench has the secondary, connotative definition "a wanton woman" but the OED recognizes it as "obsolute except in archaic usage."

Slattern too is a tricky choice in that the main sense of 'slattern' is disheveled and unclean. Again it has a secondary, connotative sense of "slut" but consider that you can accuse someone of being a 'slatternly thinker' ... this doesn't mean he/she has a filthy mind, it suggests instead a disorderly one.

To find a word as plainly expressive as _gueuse _in English you need to stick with the classics: *strumpet*, *harlot *or *slut*.


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## Elle Paris

*Sigh... as many definitions for wench as cheeses in France:*

*prostitutes*

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context►
*wench: Definition, Synonyms from Answers.com 

wench* n. A young woman or girl, especially a peasant girl. A woman servant. A wanton woman. intr.v.
www.answers.com › ... › Literature & Language › Dictionary - Cached - Similar

*wench - definition of wench by the Free Online Dictionary ...*
A young woman or girl, especially a peasant girl. 2. A woman servant. 3. A wanton woman. intr.v. wenched, wench·ing, wench·es ...
www.thefreedictionary.com/wench

*Wench - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary*
a : a young woman : girl b : a female servant. 2. : a lewd woman : prostitute · See wench defined for English-language learners » ...
*www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wench

wench - Definition of wench at YourDictionary.com*
noun. a girl or young woman: now a derogatory or jocular term; Archaic. a country girl; a female servant; a sexually loose and immoral woman ...
*www.yourdictionary.com › Dictionary Definitions

Urban Dictionary: wench*
Usually associated with the Renaissance and taverns, where the wench is pictured as a bar-maid, boldly flirting with the swashbucklers and ...
*www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wench

Wench | Define Wench at Dictionary.com *
a country lass or working girl: The milkmaid was a healthy wench. 2. Usually Facetious. a girl or young woman. 3. Archaic. a strumpet. ...
*dictionary.reference.com/browse/wench

Wench: Definition with Wench Pictures and Photos*
Definition of Wench with photos and pictures, translations, sample usage, and additional links for more information.
*www.lexic.us/definition-of/wench

wench definition - Dictionaries - MSN Encarta*
wench [ wench ]. noun (plural wenches). Definition: 1. servant girl: formerly, a girl or young woman who worked at a paid job, usually as a servant or on a ...
*uk.encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861815622/wench.html - *

so... "wench" and "gueuse" correspond pretty well!


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## Cath.S.

Elle Paris said:


> (...)*A gueuse can be a servant girl but the word itself does not hold that meaning.  *Which is why I suggested _wench_ was not an acceptable translation.* Moreover a gueuse can be but is not necessarily a harlot or a catin.*


But, Elle Paris, that is what it means.
− _Subst. fém._    Femme de mauvaise vie. Synon. _catin, prostituée, ribaude._ _S'amouracher d'une gueuse _
_Source TLFi_
Moreover, that is what the Royalists meant specifically - imho.


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## mgarizona

Cath.S. said:


> _Harlot _sounds like a good word to use in this figurative sense.


Actually I'm thinking the same now, given the religious leanings of the Royalists. Beginning with the 1611 Bible, 'harlot' became the biblical word of choice for a 'loose woman.'


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## Cath.S.

Quelques phrases d'un texte que j'ai trouvé parmi les commentaires d'un site ultra-nationaliste (mais pas forcément républicain, vous l'aurez deviné) :

Volons donc tous comme un seul homme à la rescousse de la putain rouge  qui nous a mis dans ce cloaque et encenssons-là _(sic)_ avec vigueur.
Nous défendrons donc la république(...). Et nous défendrons le pays dont *cette  république jacobine* a tué l’âme en tuant ses  régions et ses peuples. 

Les autres intervenants de la discussion appellent fréquemment la République _la gueuse._

J'essaie de convaincre ceux qui douteraient encore : dans leur bouche, _gueuse = putain_ et rien d'autre.


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## Elle Paris

Still think that "That wench, the French republic" works just fine and that if they are not calling her a putain (because putain is the exactly the word the French would use <in any time-period> when they want to say whore/prostitute and they have never had qualms about using it) they intend not to; so I can assume that if they ever use the word "gueuse" they are saying something else... like "wench"! 
Un peu alambiqué, mais enfin...


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## Cath.S.

_Putain_ is the word some will use _today,_ because it is much more acceptable now than it was then, especially to use in public. G_ueuse_ was not as crude; but those same people still retain _gueuse_ because it is the historical moniker the Republic was originally given by the anti-revolutionaries with whom they share some political views.

Having said my bit, I'll be signing off this thread now.


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## jean pierre aussant

"gueuse" is the feminine for gueux, wich means a very poor person who leaves in extremely bad conditions or who is homeless. It is pejorative and it also means that this person is dirty. It has nothing to do with the belgian beer. However the expression "gueuse" has been used by french monarchists (to whom I belong) who never accepted the (false) french revolution (in reality a free mason "coup d'état" against the french and the Church. The royalists call the republic "la gueuse". But then "gueuse" when it refers to the repubic can also be assimilated (even though it ist not its first meaning) to a prostitute.


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## Elle Paris

finaud said:


> I have seen  in 'cassell's a definition of gueuse as 'bitch' ( on top of lingot, wench, beggar,prostitute belgian beer etc). My question is, does 'gueuse' literally mean bitch(synonym de chienne)or is it being used figuratively here?


"Wench" fits well most of the time- mostly meaning "possibly promiscuous female low-life", but also "bit of skirt" or "Pu$$y" as in "courir la gueuse" meaning to run after or be on the hunt for one or the other. The French République/ Marianne is called "The Wench" by nobles who harbor a bad opinion/grudge and who don't believe in it/her. It's an old word that we find in old prose, songs and poems. I have never heard anybody use it nowadays (being both American and French as well as Parisienne for 36 years)- not even from the mouths of Prix Goncourts nor of nobles who still say "vous" to their "significant others" and who refuse to celebrate Bastille Day.


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