French-likeadv.adj.

a1557 J. Cheke in tr. Gospel St. Matthew (1843) xviii. 17 (note) We folowing y^e greek calle yis house, as y^e north doth yet moor truli sound it, y^e kurk, and we moor corruptli and frenchlike, y^e church.

1597 Bp. J. Hall Virgidemiarum: 1st 3 Bks. iii. vii. 65 His haire French like; stares on his frighted hed.

1632 W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. iii. 126 Whatsoever extortion or injury they use against him, he must be French-like contented, bowing his head, and making a counterfeit shew of thankes.

1698 J. Strype Life Sir T. Smith App. 85 The Scots be in so natural League with France, that he is no true Scot, unless he speak and do French-like.

1794 Chambaud's Gram. French Tongue (ed. 11) 61 We pronounce machine and stomachique French like, and méchanique and stomachal, Greek like.

1926 E. Wylie Orphan Angel vi. 190 Silver as you call her, or Sylvie as her daddy called her, speaking it French-like, or Maria Solidad de Sylva, as her ma called her and the priest christened her, must now be twenty-one years old.

1576 G. Whetstone Ortchard of Repentance 69 in Rocke of Regard One meale, no more a day, is pittance very small, To like wel of, such french like fare, few English yeomen fall.

1584 J. Hart in J. Rainolds Summe of Conf. betw. J. Rainoldes & J. Hart viii. 510 All ecclesiastical writers haue certaine properties peculiar to them selues..: such, as is a gorgeous shew in Antiochus,..a French-like statelines of vtterance in Hilarie.

1631 J. Weever Anc. Funerall Monuments 687 Francica maiestatis, of a French-like Maiesty assumed by K. Edward the third.

a1661 Earl of Monmouth tr. P. G. Capriata Hist. Wars Italy (1663) x. 371 You may peradventure think that a French-like fury, more terrible then the raging of the Sea, might devour those Provinces?

1778 W. Shaw Anal. Galic Lang. i. v. 9 Let this mark * distinguish French-like syllables.

1797 J. Wolcot Wks. Peter Pindar I. 67 We see, instead of lace, About the Poet's back, with little grace, Those fluttering, French-like followers, call'd Rags.

1841 T. De Quincey in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 217/2 The arrogant Spartan, mad with a French-like self-glorification, boasted for ever of his little Thermopylæ.

1862 Southern Literary Messenger Mar. 105/2 The bowing obsequious ducks, with their Dutch-like figures, and French-like manners, gather around the pump, for the evening draught.

1939 Kingsport (Tennessee) Times 29 Jan. 16/2 And to complete the French-like farce in which the gendarmes are humorously stalemated, there was the piquant reticence of Brulatour's dazzling and popular young wife.

1985 R. D. Grillo Ideol. & Instit. Urban France xii. 186 They [sc. young immigrants] are Frenchlike (in language, ideas, expectations), but can never be fully accepted as such.

2002 D. Verdier Moving Money ii. iii. 42 Yearning for centralization, the Spanish government in 1853 attempted to centralize savings banks' resources in a French-like central caisse.