Crossword clues for piquant
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Piquant \Pi"quant\, a. [F., p. pr. of piquer to prick or sting.
See Pike.]
Stimulating to the taste; giving zest; tart; sharp; pungent;
as, a piquant anecdote. ``As piquant to the tongue as salt.''
--Addison. ``Piquant railleries.''
--Gov. of Tongue.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1520s, from Middle French piquant "pricking, stimulating, irritating," present participle of piquer "to prick, sting, nettle" (see pike (n.2)).
Wiktionary
a. 1 engaging; charming. 2 Favorably stimulating to the palate; pleasantly spicy; stimulating. 3 (context archaic English) Causing hurt feelings; scathing.
WordNet
Usage examples of "piquant".
He had many a talk, at odd times, with the glittering farceur Charles Mathews, about dramatic art, and some of this is recorded in piquant anecdotes.
It was not long before I discovered that she was in love with me, and I should have thought myself ridiculous if I had been cruel to a young brunette who was piquant, lively, amiable, and had a most delightful voice.
It was now 8:15 and they were sipping Pisco sours, the popular Peruvian cocktail, piquant and delicious.
These plays are funds of delightful sentiment, unhackneyed, piquant humor, and minute observation.
Lined with spotless linen, and covered with small sidedishes, whence an appetising odour at once gamy and piquant seemed to emanate, and bearing, moreover, a small bottle of Lafitte, and a decanter of sherry that looked like a liquid topaz, the tray reconciled Mr.
Sample Menu: The Clear Camel Piss Soup with boiled Earth Worms The Filet of Sun-Ripened Sting Ray basted with Eau de Cologne and garnished with nettles The After-Birth Supreme de Boeuf, cooked in drained crank case oil, served with a piquant sauce of rotten egg yolks and crushed bed bugs The Limburger Cheese sugar cured in diabetic orine doused in Canned Heat Flamboyant.
I rocked her to and fro in my arms, and stroked her long, shining cascade of hair, then tilted her piquant dollface to mine.
They had their own piquant descriptions for endoskeletal, soft-bodied, ground-bound bipeds.
She glanced once more with a certain piquant longing at the wind-lashed wall beneath her and with an annoyed twist of her lips, jerked the windows shut.
Its charm lies in its piquant and perverse flavor, for though he writes novels of pure adventure, he is curiously lacking in the power to tell a story.
Simna moved to help Millie Carnavon, who thanked him politely even as she shooed him away with that piquant half-little girl, half-maternal smile of hers.
It was not long before I discovered that she was in love with me, and I should have thought myself ridiculous if I had been cruel to a young brunette who was piquant, lively, amiable, and had a most delightful voice.
At this the girl seemed to reflect a moment, and then recited some verses from the Priapeia to the effect that unripe fruit is often more piquant than that which is ripe.
She must have been flattered, and the incident evidently increased her good humour, as she amused us by her wit and her piquant stories about Lady Montagu.
Waking that morning, with her beside him, he realized with a piquant sorrow that she would soon climb from the bed and dress and walk out the door-to her own life, to anormal life.