bricole

From French bricole, from Late Latin briccola, bricola, of uncertain origin.

• IPA^(key): /bɹɪˈkəʊl/, /ˈbɹɪkəl/
• Homophone: brickle
• Rhymes: -əʊl, -ɪkəl

bricole (plural bricoles)

1. (military) A kind of traces with hooks and rings, used to drag manoeuvre guns where horses cannot be used.
   • 1780, “A list of the rebel ship of war taken or destroyed in the harbour of Charles-Town”, in Henry Mayo, editor, The London Magazine, volume XLIX, page 295:

     The Bricole, pierced for 60, mounting 44 guns, twenty four and eighteen pounders, ſunk, her captain, officers, and company priſoners.

2. (military, historical) An ancient kind of military catapult.
   • 1893, Lew Wallace, The Prince of India: or, Why Constantinople Fell, volume II, Books on Demand, published 2018, page 296:

     And besides here are none of the old-time machines as elsewhere along our front; not a catapult, or bricole, or bible—as some, with wicked facetiousness, have named a certain invention for casting huge stones; nor have we yet heard the report of a cannon, or arquebus, or bombard, although we know the enemy has them in numbers.

3. In real tennis, the rebound of a ball from a wall of the court; also, the side stroke or play by which the ball is driven against the wall; hence, (figurative) an indirect action or stroke.
   • 1699, “The Frogs and the Bulls: Reflexion”, in Sir Robert L’Estrange, transl., Fables, of Æsop And Other Eminent Mythologists, 3rd edition, London: R. Sare, page 376:

     Let Ill Conſequences be never ſo Remote, ’tis good however, with the Frogs here in the Fable, to have the Reaſon of Things at Hand. The Deſign of many Actions looks one way, and the Event works another ; as a Young Gameſter’s Couzen’d with a Bricole at Tennis.

4. (billiards) A shot in which the cue ball is initially driven against the cushion.

• Corbeil, corbeil, orbicle

Middle French [Term?], from Italian briccola.

• IPA^(key): /bʁi.kɔl/

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bricole f (plural bricoles)

1. (medicine) sling
2. (colloquial) trifle

   Synonym: bagatelle

3. (historical) a type of medieval catapult
4. (military) a munitions store
5. (colloquial, in the plural) problems
   • 2014, Édouard Louis, En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule [The End of Eddy], Le Seuil:

     Mais tant pis pour lui parce que si ça continue il pourrait lui arriver des bricoles, la même chose qu’à Sylvain.

     But too bad for him, since if it continues he could run into problems, the same thing that happened to Sylvain.

bricole

1. inflection of bricoler:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “bricole”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.