I was briefly derailed while reading Korsha Wilson’s excellent piece on restaurant criticism by an unfamiliar word: “The servers outfitted in white suit jackets designed by Tom Ford wheeling around silver gueridons and tableside flambe stations…” What was a gueridon? Turns out it’s “a small usually ornately carved and embellished stand or table”; the word is from French guéridon, “Gueridon, character in 17th century farces and popular songs.” (According to French Wikipedia, where you can see a number of images of gueridons, the farce character was “un jeune esclave noir” [a young black slave], which is certainly ironic in this context.) I love learning new words, and thought I’d pass this one along (though doubtless many readers are already familiar with it — everybody’s wordhoard is different).
I thought a guéridon was a pedestal table, with a single pillar instead of four legs. And no wheels. I stand corrected.
mollymooly:
Follow Hat’s link to French Wikipedia. There are a couple of single-legged variants. The cedar pedestal (I assume the number of feet is irrelevant) that I had made to hold coffee/tea/cocoa on the right side of my recliner now has two names.
Remember tv dinner tables in the 50s ? Those were gueridons in all but name. You can still buy them, I find, with wheels even.
I keep my computer on a guéridon like the one at Fontainebleau only with a cast metal piétement central and a marble top, no tiroir. I’m sitting at it now and the marble makes my hands cold.
I blame collinsdictionary. This was a word I remember looking up repeatedly, along with plafonnier.
I still surmise that the prototypical guéridon is a pedestal table, but my previous prototype was a simple two-person café table, as opposed to an ornate sidetable with a drawer.
I recently learned the English word gilet, meaning a cyclist’s tight, wind-proof vest, at about the same time that the gilets jaunes first emerged in the news.
But maillot jaune is a sign of a leader in a multi-day cycling competition.
https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/gu%C3%A9ridon
‘…probablement composé de “o gué” et de “laridon”. Il est utilisé dans les chansons satiriques pour se moquer d’un personnage.’
????????????
I got as far as to find that Laridon is a dog’s name? This is all too weird.
D.O. – not always. In the Giro d’Italia, the race leader wears the maglia rosa. In the Vuelta a España, the maillot rojo.
The Tour of Britain leader wears a fawn wooly cardigan.
🙂 (a green jersey, actually)
A word that often crops up in the title of Picasso still lifes:
https://www.google.com/search?q=picasso+gueridon&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB771GB771&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy85mSqePgAhWXXhUIHVZiBQYQ_AUIDigB&biw=1021&bih=538#imgrc=SmFWuUb2TRMWPM:
Interesting!