debauchee

Etymology

It is borrowed from French débauché (“debauched (person)”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} the noun use of the past participle of débaucher (“to debauch”),^[2][3][4][7] and the Shorter Oxford and the Random House text cross-refer its ending to the English suffix -ee.^[5][7] The French verb goes back to Old French desbauchier,^[4][8] of uncertain origin:^[3][9] Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary explain it from des- and bauch (“a beam”), a word of Germanic origin, as "to roughhew timber",^[4][8] which Etymonline calls supposed.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person given to excess in sensual pleasure: before 1661, in B. Holyday's translation of Juvenal, printed in 1673.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1661, Etymonline the 1660s and the Random House text 1655–65.^[4][3][7]

Semantic evolution

The French participle described someone turned away from duty,^[6] and the English noun has from the start named a person given to sensual excess.^[2][5] In the 17th and 18th centuries it was also spelled deboichee and deboshee, which the OED compares with deboshed.^[2] Johnson (1755) defines it as "a lecher; a drunkard; a man given to intemperance", quoting South's Sermons.^[10] Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary (1911) defines it as one "who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it".^[3]

Timeline

• before 1661 – a person given to excess in sex or drink.^[2][4]
• 1768 – used attributively: a debauchee physician.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person given to excessive sensual pleasure, especially in sex, drink or drugs; a libertine or rake: The memoir paints the count as an aging debauchee.^{[2][4][11][5]}

Related words

• debauch
• debauchery

Usage notes

The Shorter Oxford marks the word as now chiefly literary.^[5] The last syllables may be pronounced either /ˈtʃiː/ or /ˈʃiː/.^[11][5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins