passade

English

Alternative forms

• passado

Etymology

French passade.

Noun

passade (plural passades)

1. (fencing) A pass or thrust.
2. A turn or course of a horse backward or forward on the same spot of ground.
3. (dated) A brief romantic or sexual relationship; a fling.
   • 2011, David Lodge, A Man of Parts: A Novel, Penguin Group, page 134:

     He was fairly sure that if he had acted first he could have enjoyed more kisses, and who knows what might have followed? "The flesh is weak, the heart is susceptible..." Edith was a passionate woman, and Bland was conveniently absent on business in the north of England. But on reflection he was relieved that he had not taken the opportunity to initiate a passade with her. His reasons were ungallant. […] When he imagined making love to her naked on a bed the picture he summoned up was faintly ludicrous. So it was well that nothing irrevocable had been said or done between them in the summerhouse, and he could maintain an innocent friendly relationship with her.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “passade”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Espadas, spadeas

Galician

Verb

passade

1. (reintegrationist norm) second-person plural imperative of passar

Swedish

Verb

passade

1. past indicative of passa