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maquereau

mackerel

noun mak-ROH Rare

Also means

pimp

Usage Note

Maquereau has two very distinct registers: as a fish, it is a common oily sea fish eaten grilled or smoked; as slang, it means a pimp. The plural is maquereaux. Learners should be aware of the slang sense to avoid unintended double meanings.

Examples

"Nous avons mangé du maquereau grillé."

Natural Translation

We ate grilled mackerel.

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