Boche

Boche is a term Péjoratif to nominate a German or a person of German origin which was especially used by the French during the wars which opposed them to Germany.

Origin

The word boche is a Aphérèse of alboche which would be made of German “Al” for and of “boche” for caboche . Its first official appearance is attested in 1860 in expressions like “with the trick, if Alboche is coarse” (which means “With the play, if the German is coarse”) or “heads of boches” used in Alsace and quoted in the Dictionnaire of the modern Slang of Stone (1881). “Head of boche” meant “wood head formerly”. A derivative, the expression Switzerland-Alboche , is sometimes used unfavourably to qualify the people originating in German-speaking Switzerland.

Use

The word boche starts to be spread in the military Argot starting from the Franco-German Guerre of 1870. It will be especially popularized by the Poilu S in the trenches of the Great War before passing in the civil language.

If there remains still of use at the time of the Second world war, he is then competed with by other pejorative expressions against the Germans, like “fritz”, “Chleuhs”, “fridolins” or “curly”.

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