Noun: étau
Gender: m
Hyphenation:
| Singular m | étau |
| Plural m | étaux |
Sample Sentences
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L'étau se resserre. (The noose is tightening.)
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L'étau se resserre autour du Haut-Karabakh, que Bakou entend ramener dans son giron. (The net is tightening around Nagorno-Karabakh, which Baku intends to bring back into its fold.) [2023 May, Constant Léon, “L'Arménie en quête de soutien”, in Le Monde diplomatique, page 12:]
Nouns inflected like étau
renouveau,
pocheteau,
berceau,
métamatériau,
ypréau,
ypreau,
chaudeau,
lanterneau,
lapineau,
bordeau,
lapereau,
bouleau,
paonneau,
bandeau,
barreau,
bardeau,
barbeau,
zoziau,
mâtineau,
colineau, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle French estau, estot (“vise”, 16th c.). Probably from Old French estoc (“trunk”), from Frankish *stokk; compare German Schraubstock. If so, a doublet of estoc. Alternatively, a doublet of étal instead, but the Middle French form in -ot makes this appear less likely, particularly as the same spelling also occurs for estoc in other senses. See: German Nouns '
Schraubstock'.
Verbs referencing "étau"
German Nouns
Schraubstock.
Translations