Etymologically
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chic

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is borrowed from French chic,[2][3][4][5] which the OED records as a noun from 1793, also spelled chique, first meaning a relaxed manner, then subtlety and refinement (1823), in painting the use of the imagination (1832), and elegance (1835); the French adjective is recorded only from 1842, later than in English.[2] Most dictionaries take the French word as probably from German Schick (“skill, tact, fitness”),[2][6][5][7][8] in the OED's account a regional word of southern Germany and especially Switzerland, recorded from the 15th century,[2] from the verb schicken (“to arrange, prepare; now to send”), Middle High German schicken.[2][6][8][4] Merriam-Webster gives the route through Low German, from Middle Low German schicken (“to put in order”),[9] and Weekley notes the German word in the same sense in Low German as early as the 14th century.[10] The OED takes these Germanic verbs as probably causatives from the base of Old English scēon (“to happen”) and Old High German skehan (“to happen”).[2] Etymonline, Hoad and Partridge also mention a connection with chicane (“quibbling, trickery”), the source of chicanery, either as a shortening of it or through an older French word of the same spelling meaning trickery in lawsuits (16th century).[3][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Stylishly elegant: the adjective is first recorded in English in 1832, in a letter later printed in the Atlantic Monthly, earlier than in French.[2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the noun to 1856, first as a French word in an English novel, and the adjective to 1865;[4][9] Etymonline dates the noun to 1856 and the adjective, of persons, to 1879.[3]

Semantic evolution

In French the word was at first artists' slang,[11][12] and in English the noun was first a term of the fine arts: from 1844, working from the imagination rather than from life,[2] or in Etymonline's account artistic skill, the ability to produce good work quickly and easily.[3] The general sense of stylish elegance, especially in dress and manner, is recorded from 1851.[2] Etymonline dates the sense of Parisian elegance combined with originality to 1882, and notes that the Pall Mall Gazette in 1888 stopped to define it as "an untranslatable word, denoting an indispensable quality".[3] Since 1970 it has been used after another word for the look associated with a lifestyle or subculture, as in radical chic and geek chic.[2][13] A verb followed: in art, to produce work from the imagination (1891), and to make something stylish, usually chic up (1919).[2]

Timeline

  • 1832 – adjective, stylishly elegant.[2]
  • 1844 – noun, in the fine arts, working from the imagination.[2]
  • 1851 – noun, stylish elegance.[2]
  • 1856 – noun, as a French word in an English novel.[4][3][9]
  • 1865 – adjective, in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.[4][9]
  • 1891 – verb, in art.[2]
  • 1919 – verb, to make stylish, usually with up.[2]
  • 1970 – as the second part of compounds such as radical chic.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Stylish and elegant, especially in dress: a chic little hotel.[13][9][2]
  2. Currently in fashion; modish.[9][14]

Noun

  1. Stylish elegance, especially in dress or manner.[13][9][2]
  2. A fashionable style associated with a particular lifestyle or subculture, used after another word: radical chic, geek chic.[13][2]
  3. (fine arts) Artistic cleverness; working from the imagination rather than from life.[9][2]

Verb

  1. To make something stylish, usually chic up.[2]

Word family

  • chicly
  • chicness
  • superchic
  • ultrachic
  • unchic
  • radical chic
  • chicane
  • chicanery

Usage notes

Dictionary.com considers the spelling pronunciation /tʃɪk/ nonstandard except when used humorously.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House