[DVBC] "boucle," meaning and etymology

[Bob LaDrew]

    Dear Professor Bloch:
    Can you hear us all the way up in New Haven?
    --Bob LaDrew

At the price of being a pedantic pedaler, the word "boucle" comes from the 
Latin "buccula," a diminuitive of "bucca" or "cheek," the link made perhaps 
because of the cheek strap.  It means "buckle" or "loop" (of ribbon or 
string) in modern French.  It is feminine, thus "la grande boucle" is both 
colloquial and correct.  What is now the "Grande Boucle" in cycling used to 
be the "Tour cycliste féminin" or the "Tour féminin."

Howard Bloch
Sterling Professor of French
Yale University