Come talk about fun and quirky words in the English Language. Posting is open to all members.
moue
A little grimace. Pout.
From Merriam-Webster:
Moue is one of two similar-sounding words in English that refer to a pout or grimace; the other is "mow," which is pronounced to rhyme either with "no" or "now." "Mow" and "mou" share the same origin (the Anglo-French mouwe) and a distant relationship to a Middle Dutch word for a protruding lip. (They do not, however, share a relationship to the word mouth, which derives from Old English "mŪth.") While use of "moue" in English only traces back a little more than 150 years, "mow" dates all the way back to the 14th century. "Moue" has also seen occasional use as a verb, as when Nicholson Baker, in the August 15, 1988 New Yorker, described how a woman applying lip gloss would "slide the lip from side to side under it and press her mouth together and then moue it outward…"




Fashion people love this word. It perfectly describes that petulant, pouty expression halfway between kiss and kiss-off. Heh.
I've been given that look a lot, but didn't have a word for it... :-O
So when I learn a new word like this, I like to think about how I would use it. In particular what connotations does moue have that pout does not have?
I found this usage: She made a moue that I ought to have found fascinating. I can't think of a pout being fascinating. So maybe it implies some level of flirtation. That falls in line with the fashion model usage that @underused brought up.
That gives it a precise meaning that would motivate me to use it in place of pout.
Yeah, that's how I see the difference, too. A moue leaves you not quite certain if it's a pout or something else.
Cool. Precise subtle meanings like that are the reasons I enjoy learning new words.
It does have something extra. Aside from the Bardot pout, it's often used to refererence a kind of dollish mouth--so think of someone like Clara Bow.
Also, it is the wont of fashion to be fancy and French, sartorially and linguistically!
That last sentence was poetic dude. Well done.
And that Clara Bow has something going on that I can't really put my finger on. That's awesome.