Arblay

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A French family name carried by the émigré officer Alexandre who married the novelist Frances Burney in 1793
2. The surname of Alexandre, a French exile and army officer whose 1793 marriage to the writer Frances Burney made her a French noblewoman by title
3. A French surname borne by the émigré soldier who wed the English novelist Frances Burney and became her husband in the late eighteenth century

Etymology: Arblay is a rare English word, most often met in the phrase "arblay" in Fanny Burney's novel "Evelina" and in her later writing, where it is a word for a light, graceful, lively manner of moving or speaking. Burney was fond of it, and she is the source readers usually have in mind when they encounter it. Its real origin lies in France. The word comes from the French "arbalète" meaning a crossbow, and the crossbow's association with a quick, forceful release seems to have been carried over into the sense of something nimble or agile. Burney's usage is the reason the word survives at all, since it was never widely used outside her circle of writers. A reader who finds it in her pages should take it as a deliberately chosen, slightly old-fashioned flourish rather than an everyday term.