dulcour

English

Alternative forms

• dulcor, dulcore, dulcoure

Etymology

From Middle English dulcour, dulcoure, from Latin dulcor (“sweetness”); cognate with French douceur, whence the English doublet douceur.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: dŭlʹkər, IPA^(key): /ˈdʌlkə/

Noun

dulcour (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Sweetness, agreeability, pleasantness; dulcitude, dulcity; suavitude, suavity.
   • 15th century, All haile, lady, mother, and virgyn immaculate, line 20:

     So dulcour was the ground in whom crist hym planted.

   • 1420–1500, G. H., Ane Elegie Translatit out of the Frenche, written by a Ladye upon Hir Husband’s Infidelitie, fifth verse:

     The blak Pluto, thoch he war never ſo ſchairpe,
     Orpheus movit with ſueitnes of his harpe.
     The hardeſt hairt, be it aſſailyit oft,
     With ſueit meiknes it may be makin ſoft;
     And, namlie, be the dulcour feminine,
     Quhilk at all tyme the maiſt motive hes bene
     To gentil hairts, of onye thing alyve,
     To move thair myndis maiſt inſenſative.

   • a. 1451, John Lydgate, Court of Sapyence, introductory verses (1481 Caxton edition):

     Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes
     With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute
     Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes
     And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute
     So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute
     The redolent dulcour aromatyke
     Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke.

   • 1450–1475, The Mirour of Mans Saluacioune, lines 151–154:

     So Crist, as he was ruthfully hamerd apon the Croce,
     Songe to his Fadire of heven in a full swete voice:
     So swete and faire was it, and full of all dulcoure,
     Þat it convertid thre thovzand men in þat ilk one houre; […]

   • 1484–1490, Diodorus Siculus (author) and John Skelton (translator), Bibliotheca Historica, page unknown:

     In-so-moche that maryners when they saile so farre on lofe as they may well know and apperceive the coost of that contrey, yet the dulcour and aire delicious vppon theym so […]

   • 1528, David Lyndsay, The Dreme of Schir David Lyndesay, of the Mont, Familiar Servitovr to Ovr Soverane Lord, Kyng Iames the Fyft, &c., lines 582–586:

     Thare is plentie of all plesouris perfyte,
     Euident brychtnes, but obscuritie;
     Withouttin dolour, dulcore and delyte;
     Withouttin rancour, perfyte Cheritie;
     Withouttin hunger, Sasiabilitie.

   • 1675, Lancelot Addison, The present state of the Jews in Barbary, page 176:

     […] that by its colour and dulcour they might be remembered of the purity and delightfulness of the law.

Translations

sweetness; dulcitude; suavitude — see sweetness

References

• “†dulcor, -our” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)