double entendre

Meaning

Noun

• A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo.

Origin

• According to Merriam-Webster and OED, from rare and obsolete French double entendre, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" or "ambiguity," but acquired its current suggestive twist after being first used in English in 1673 by John Dryden. From French double ("double") + entendre. (The phrase has not been used in French for centuries and would be ungrammatical in modern French.) The closest equivalent in modern French is double sens, which often has (but not always) the suggestiveness of the English expression.