Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In France, a police-spy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An undercover investigator; a police spy, especially in a French-speaking country.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French mouchard, from mouche ‘fly’.

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Examples

  • Not a "mouchard" tracked us; none even looked after us as we went.

    Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 Various

  • 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

  • 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”?

    Scenes from a Courtesan's Life 2007

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

Comments

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  • 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