taille

See also: Taille, taillé, and táille

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French taille (“cut”, noun). Doublet of tally.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taɪ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophones: tie, Ty, Thai

Noun

taille (countable and uncountable, plural tailles)

1. (historical) A form of taxation levied on the land of peasants in pre-Revolutionary France.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 143:

     The main royal tax was the taille, a tax on landed wealth, distributed among the généralités and assessed and levied in a variety of ways, and it was supplemented by a range of other direct taxes [...].

2. (baroque music jargon) The tenor voice or part, especially the part for the tenor viol or viola

Related terms

• tallage (“a tax”)

References

• “taille”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• tallie

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French taille.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɑ.jə/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: tail‧le

Noun

taille f (plural tailles, diminutive tailletje n)

1. waistline

Derived terms

• wespentaille

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French taille, deverbal of Old French taillier (“to cut”). Compare Italian taglia, Catalan talla.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taj/ ~ /tɑj/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

taille f (plural tailles)

1. the act of cutting, pruning, trimming

   Synonym: coupe

2. size

   Synonyms: grandeur, gabarit

3. waist
   • 2005, Marc-André Wagner, Le cheval dans les croyances germaniques: paganisme, christianisme et traditions [The Horse in Germanic Beliefs: Paganism, Christianity, and Traditions], Honoré Champion, →ISBN:

     Le dernier type est le "cheval-jupon", un terme que l’ethnologue réserve à un déguisement pour une personne, constitué comme suit : le corps de la personne est entouré à la taille par un tissu — le jupon — recouvrant l’essentiel de ses jambes, une tête du cheval en bois […]

     The last type is the "hobby horse", a term which Ethnologue reserves for a disguise for a person, made as follows: the body of the person is surrounded at the waist by a cloth — the skirt — covering most of his legs; a horse's head of wood […]

4. waistline
5. a direct tax levied during the Ancien Régime; tallage
6. (baroque music jargon) The tenor voice or part, especially the part for the tenor viol or viola

Derived terms

• de taille
• pierre de taille
• taillable
• taille de guêpe
• tour de taille

Related terms

• tailler

Descendants

• → Danish: talje
• → Dutch: taille
• → Russian: та́лия (tálija)
• → Spanish: talla

Further reading

• “taille”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle English

Noun

taille

1. Alternative form of tayl

Old French

Alternative forms

• tallie (rare, Anglo-Norman)

Etymology

Deverbal from taillier (“to cut”).

Noun

taille oblique singular, f (oblique plural tailles, nominative singular taille, nominative plural tailles)

1. cut (act; instance of cutting)
2. cut; wound; incision (result of being cut)
3. cut (of clothing)
4. a count kept by carving notches into a stick
5. (by extension) a count; a tally
6. charge; levy; taxation; tax

Descendants

• Middle French: taille
  • French: taille
    • → Danish: talje
    • → Dutch: taille
    • → Russian: та́лия (tálija)
    • → Spanish: talla
  • → English: taille
• → Irish: táille
• → Middle English: talie
  • English: tally

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (taille, supplement)
• taille on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub