World Wide Words logo

FOUDROYANT/fuːˈdrɔɪənt/Help with IPA

Of disease that comes on suddenly and severely; dazzling, stunning.

These days, the medical fraternity almost has a monopoly on this word (as an alternative to the much more common fulminant, which means the same thing), though only the most academic of clinicians seem to use it.

Outside medicine, it is if anything even more rare, an alternative to words like “brilliant” or “dazzling”, as here in a review in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1999: “Heavy on elan and the damper pedal, pianists such as Simon, Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet and Byron Janis wow you with foudroyant playing”.

But anybody with an interest in naval history will know it best as the name for several Royal Navy ships at various periods, such as one of Nelson’s flagships in the Mediterranean in 1799 (and there is now a French submarine with the same name). The word is indeed French, from foudroyer, to strike with lightning, so it makes a very good name for a fighting ship.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2009. All rights reserved. Contact me if you want to reproduce this piece, but first see my advice page, which also has notes about linking. Your comments and corrections are welcome.

Page created 27 Apr. 2002
Bookmark and Share
E-Magazine
Try the weekly World Wide Words e-magazine — it features words in the news, weird words, new(ish) words, old words, words people ask questions about, and even the occasional grovelling correction.
Subscribe to the e-magazine using RSS Subscribe to the site updates RSS feed
Notes and comments
Try a page at random