béret

See also: beret

English

Noun

béret (plural bérets)

1. Alternative spelling of beret.
   • 1926 November, “[Life, Letters, and the Arts] Bérets”, in The Living Age, volume 331, number 4293, Boston, Mass.: The Living Age Company, pages 274–275:

     The béret, heretofore peculiar to the Latin Quarter and the head of Jean Borotra, has now been seen on the Prince of Wales and General Trotter. Telegraphic dispatches from Biarritz reported that the two men were observed on the golf course ‘wearing bérets adjusted at exactly the right angle.’

   • 1934, Punch, or The London Charivari, volume 186, page 270, column 2:

     By the older villagers the whole idea is looked upon as nothing less than madness, and is classed by them with the wearing of bérets by young men, the drawing of the “idle money,” and the carrying of a comb with which to smooth back a cascade of hair that otherwise might interfere seriously with its owner’s vision.

   • 1936, Lawrence Augustus Averill, “Adolescent Interests”, in Adolescence: A Study in the Teen Years, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, page 182:

     For school and sport wear, bérets and caps have superseded more conventional forms of headdress for boys and girls alike.

   • 1936, Amy Oakley, The Heart of Provence, New York, N.Y., London: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., page 178:

     Youth and agility characterize the white-clad figures wearing bérets and Basque sandals.

   • 1944 September, “[Oppression and Terror] Enforced Germanisation”, in A Catalogue of Crime: An Outline Indictment of German War Guilt, Criminal War Aims and War-Time Excesses (Great Britain Ministry of Information, Miscellaneous Publications; 9), section III (German War Crimes and Excesses), pages 43–44:

     The Mülhauser Tagblatt, official Nazi daily paper for Upper Alsace, April, 1941: “Kreisleiter Murer took the opportunity to deliver a last warning to the few still living in Mülhaus who do not want to learn. It is that small clique of people who . . . walk about wearing bérets and converse in French. We can compel these people, and if they do not mend their ways, we can compel them more quickly than they expect. Müilhaus is a German town, and in a German town there is no room for people who do not want to be German.”

   • 1956, Jean-Louis Curtis, translated by Humphrey Hare, “Fragments from a Dead World”, in The Side of the Angels, London: Secker & Warburg, part one, page 91:

     They were surrounded by men and boys wearing bérets who, armed with cudgels, their aspect fierce and determined, clamoured in unison, “Death to Daladier!”

   • 2018, Michael Barnes Selvin, All the Clouds, [Morrisville, N.C.]: [Lulu.com], →ISBN, page 484:

     “Hunters,” Armando says. / “Not so sure,” Paul replies. “Look how they’re dressed. Too neat and not outfitted for the cold. They’re wearing bérets, for God’s sake. Hunting? That dog’s a herder, not a hunting dog. They have a rifle. That doesn’t bother you?”

Anagrams

• Ebert, B-tree, Berte

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Occitan (Gascon) berret (“cap”), from Medieval Latin birretum, from Late Latin birrus (“large hooded cloak”), from Gaulish birrus (“short cloak”), from Proto-Celtic *birros (“short”) (compare Welsh byr, Middle Irish berr). Compare biretta, Catalan barret.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /be.ʁɛ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

béret m (plural bérets)

1. beret

Derived terms

• béret vert

Descendants

• → English: beret
• → Greek: μπερές (berés)
• → Polish: beret
• → Romanian: beretă, beret
• → Russian: бере́т (berét)
  • → Georgian: ბერეტი (bereṭi)
  • → Kazakh: берет (beret)
• → Turkish: bere

Further reading

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