Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In France, a police-spy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An undercover
investigator ; a policespy , especially in a French-speaking country.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Not a "mouchard" tracked us; none even looked after us as we went.
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The Frenchman cherished all the traditional hatred of his race for the profession of "mouchard," and would not be able to understand that a detective was of a higher standing.
The Secret Passage Fergus Hume 1895
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If any man should be aware of the uses and sweets of friendship, is it not the moral leper known to the world as a spy, to the mob as a _mouchard_, to the department as an “agent”?
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It was not the porter who spoke now: it was some kind of official relic or shadow or mouchard left from the old custom-house, and suffered to hang on the railway-station as an ornament.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 Various
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Returning down the Rue de la Harpe before our house my landlady exclaimed to me in alarm, "Hide your pistols! there is a _mouchard_ (spy of the police) following you."
Memoirs Charles Godfrey Leland 1863
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I believe that I, my blood being up, said something to the effect that if she would point him out I would shoot him forthwith, but the _mouchard_ had vanished.
Memoirs Charles Godfrey Leland 1863
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He did it very well, too — much better than you would have expected from so apparently unwieldy a _mouchard_.
A Stable for Nightmares or Weird Tales Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1843
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It is not easy to give a notion of his conduct under the Consulate and the Empire without borrowing such words as mouchard and mouton.
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2 Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay 1829
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It is not easy to give a notion of his conduct under the Consulate and the Empire without borrowing such words as _mouchard_ and _mouton_.
Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay 1829
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I turned round with astonishment; but the ambulating book-vender had vanished, in consequence, as I conclude, of being observed by some _mouchard.
Paris as It Was and as It Is Francis W. Blagdon 1798
qms commented on the word mouchard
To keep a secret has always been hard
But when in France be on your guard.
Along with the shrug
They invented the bug.
That fly on the wall could be a mouchard.
June 19, 2014