Provençal
/ˌprɒvɒ̃ˈsɑːl
/ /pʀɔvɑ̃sal/adjective
Relating to or denoting Provence or its people or language.Only a few days later I sat in evening dress in the Roman amphitheatre at Orange and listened to Verdi, the combined spell of the setting, the Provençal night and the singing lifted opera into another dimension....
- The image of Gitanes-puffing, beret-clad Monsieurs enjoying a game of pétanque in the Provençal sunshine is about as idiosyncratically-French as it gets.
- Ripened under the hot Provençal sun, these tomatoes would have won no prizes for beauty, but they tasted divine.
noun
1A native or inhabitant of Provence.Before they set out, they were joined by the Burgundians, northern Frenchmen under Stephen of Blois, and a small group of Provençals under Raymond of Toulouse....
- While he and Alexius were talking on friendly terms, word came that the Provençals had been routed by Byzantine troops.
- The restaurant began life modestly in 1921 as a place called ‘A Robinson’, owned by a young Provençal called Paul Roux and his wife, Baptistine.
2 [mass noun] The language of Provence.Ortolan comes to us, via French and Provençal, from Latin hortulanus or gardener, hortulus being a small garden....
- Linguistically, troubadour poetry is expressed in the ‘langue d' oc ’, a relative of present-day Provençal.
- Many of the older generation speak Provençal, the Romance language of southern France, closely related to Latin.
Provençal is a Romance language closely related to French, Italian, and Catalan; it is sometimes called langue d’oc (or Occitan), though strictly speaking it is one dialect of this. In the 12th-14th centuries it was the language of the troubadours and cultured speakers of southern France, but the spread of the northern dialects of French led to its decline.
Origin
French, from Latin provincialis 'provincial'.