pur sang

English

Etymology

From French pur-sang (“pure blood or thoroughbred (as used of a horse)”), from pur (“pure”) and sang (“blood”).

Adjective

pur sang (not comparable)

1. (chiefly postpositive) Beyond doubt or being a model example; the ne plus ultra or epitome; the definitive.

   the Art Deco painter pur sang

   • 1860 May 26, “Punch’s Essence of Parliament”, in Punch, volume XXXVIII, page 209:

     The Duke of Punch is too true an Aristocrat, pur sang, to be afraid of avowing his liking for anything […]

   • 1868, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Modern women and what is said of them: Reprint of a series of articles in the Saturday review, J.S. Redfield:

     For it is only the old-fashioned sort, not girls of the period pur sang, that marry for love, or put the husband before the banker.

   • 1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘We Frolic while ’Tis May’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. […], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], published 1873, →OCLC, page 20:

     Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to the exercised eye that he was not a Row man pur sang. First, an irrepressible wrinkle or two in the waist of his frock-coat—denoting that he had not damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman up to the orthodox high pressure of cunning workmanship.

   • 1906, Arthur Quiller-Couch, “The Famous Ballad of the Jubilee Cup”, in From a Cornish Window‎^[1]:

     But she had the grand reach forward! I never saw such a line! / Smooth-bored, clean-run, from her fiddle head with its dainty ear half-cock, / Hard-bit, pur sang, from her overhang to the heel of her off hind sock.

Usage notes

• Because this is originally a French phrase, it is generally italicized when it is written.

Anagrams

• ungrasp

French

Noun

pur sang m (plural purs sangs)

1. Alternative spelling of pur-sang

Adjective

pur sang (plural purs sangs)

1. Alternative spelling of pur-sang