Bijou
[biˈʒu]Bijou is French for a jewel or a piece of jewellery, and it came into French from Breton — bizoù, a ring, from biz, a finger. First recorded in 1460, it is a French word with a Celtic root.
Temperament
Related Names
A French word with a Breton root
Bijou means a jewel, a piece of jewellery, a trinket — anything small, precious and ornamental. In English it has picked up a second job as an adjective: a bijou flat is a small and elegant one, and the word carries a slight smile with it, because it is being used to make a virtue of being tiny.
The etymology is the interesting part. French took the word from Breton — bizoù, meaning a ring, which comes from biz, a finger. It is first recorded in French in 1460. So the French word for a jewel is a loan from a Celtic language, and it literally means something you put on a finger. French has borrowed from Breton elsewhere, but a word this ordinary and this well travelled having a Breton root is a genuinely pleasing accident.
The English adjective, and Polari
There is a second route into English worth knowing, because it explains a use of the word that otherwise looks odd. In Polari — the British slang that circulated in gay subcultures and in theatre and merchant-navy circles before it became widely known — bijou was used to mean small, and it arrived by a different path: from Sabir, the Mediterranean trading lingua franca, from the Occitan pichon, little, with the French jewel word influencing how it was spelled.
That is why the adjective sense in English has a slightly theatrical flavour that the noun does not. If you have heard bijou used about a flat with a raised eyebrow, that is where it comes from.
Bijou on a dog
BEE-zhoo. Two syllables with the stress on the second, and the j is the French one — a soft zh sound, not the hard j of "jump". Say it with a hard j and you have made an English word that does not exist. Say it properly and it sounds exactly as small and expensive as it means.
The name is chosen for size, and it sets an expectation that the dog will be little. On a small breed it is charming and precise. On a large one it is a joke, and a joke that will be repeated at you. It shortens naturally to Bij, and neither the short form nor the full name is a good shout across a field — the zh is a soft sound that wind takes. If you want a call sign, you will have to invent one.
Common questions
What does bijou mean?
Jewel, in French — a small precious ornament. It comes from Breton bizoù, a ring, from biz, finger, and is first recorded in French in 1460.
Is bijou a French or an English word?
French originally. English borrowed the noun and also uses it as an adjective meaning small and elegant, a sense that came into British slang through Polari rather than from the French.
Sources
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