crevette

See also: Crevette

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French crevette.

Noun

crevette (plural crevettes)

1. A shrimp.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Norman crevette, attested in 1532, from earlier cravette, crabette. These are diminutives of crabe (“crab”), but may be influenced by a word going back to Frankish *krebit (“crayfish”), from Proto-Germanic *krabitaz, possibly via Middle Dutch crevet (“crayfish”), from Old Dutch *krevit. Compare also écrevisse, Old Saxon krevit, Old High German krebiz. More at crayfish.

The word crevette was associated with phonetically similar Norman kevrette (“young goat”), which led to the French equivalent chevrette being occasionally used in the sense of “shrimp”. This is, in all likelihood, a secondary confusion rather than the actual origin of crevette, as supposed in some of the literature.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʁə.vɛt/

• audio

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Noun

crevette f (plural crevettes)

1. shrimp

Synonyms

• (Louisiana, Cajun French) chevrette

Derived terms

• cocktail de crevettes
• crevette grise
• crevette nordique f
• crevette rose

Descendants

• → Belarusian: крэветка (krevjetka), крэвэтка (krevetka)
• → Czech: kreveta
• → English: crevette
• → Estonian: krevett
• → German: Krevette
• → Latvian: krevete
• → Lithuanian: krevetė
• → Polish: krewetka
• → Romanian: crevetă
• → Russian: креве́тка (krevétka)
  • → Chechen: креветка (krevetka)
  • → Kazakh: креветка (krevetka)
  • → Kyrgyz: креветка (krevetka)
  • → Turkmen: krewetka
  • → Uzbek: krevetka
• → Serbo-Croatian: кревѐта
• → Slovak: kreveta
• → Ukrainian: креве́тка (krevétka)
• → Romanian: crevetă

Further reading

• “crevette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.