Thursday, January 24, 2013

en règle

en règle \ahn RE-gluh\, adjective:

In order; according to the rules; correct.

This was all done en règle, and in our work we shall be en règle too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange.
-- Bram Stoker, Dracula
I told her it was not quite en règle to bring one so far out of our own set; but she said, 'Genius itself is not en règle; it comes into the world to make new rules.'
-- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

En règle snuck into the English language in the 1810s. It came directly from the French phrase of the same spelling which meant literally "in rule."


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