Definitions

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

  • noun piquancy; having a piquant taste.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being agreeably stimulating or mentally exciting
  • noun a tart spicy quality

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In any case, the covers themselves are pretty enough, and in a nice, sparkly yarn might even add a tantalizing “you can glimpse the zill, but you cannot touch it” piquance to the zill-dancing experience, or perhaps that is only for those who identify too closely with inanimate brass objects, not that we know anyone like that around here.

    finger cymbals too loud? problem solved: crocheted zill covers « raincoaster 2007

  • To add a little piquance to the plot, Orion—even as he declared himself “penniless,” as usual, and said he was reading proof for the St. Louis Democrat for $25 a week—had earlier let slip a $30,000 purchase offer from Jervis himself.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • To add a little piquance to the plot, Orion—even as he declared himself “penniless,” as usual, and said he was reading proof for the St. Louis Democrat for $25 a week—had earlier let slip a $30,000 purchase offer from Jervis himself.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • A sweet mouth with a sensuous smile at one corner, and a barely perceptible droop of pathos at the other, lent an indescribable piquance to her dimpled smile.

    The Voice on the Wire Eustace Hale Ball

  • Essence of anchovy, ketchup, cayenne, grated lemon-peel, mace, and other spices are added by those who prefer piquance to the genuine flavor of the oyster.

    A Poetical Cook-Book Maria J. Moss

  • It was sufficiently risky to give a piquance to the experience.

    With The Immortal Seventh Division Edmund John Kennedy

  • He caught the fineness of her nose, straight as a Grecian's, but with some faint suggestion about the nostrils that hinted at piquance.

    The Blazed Trail Stewart Edward White 1909

  • He caught the fineness of her nose, straight as a Grecian's, but with some faint suggestion about the nostrils that hinted at piquance.

    The Blazed Trail 1902

  • "You belonged in the majority, then!" said Cigarette, with a piquance made a thousand times more piquant by the camp slang she spoke in.

    Under Two Flags 1839-1908 Ouida 1873

  • The last crown to the chorus of applause, and insult to the circle of applauders, was launched with all the piquance of inimitable canteen-slang and camp-assurance, from a speaker who had perched astride on a broken fragment of wall, with her barrel of wine set up on end on the stones in front of her, and her six soldiers, her gros bebees, as she was given maternally to calling them, lounging at their ease on the arid, dusty turf below.

    Under Two Flags 1839-1908 Ouida 1873

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