Soupçon

Soupçon (pronounced soop-sawn)

(1) A slight trace, dash, hint, modicum or vestige, as of a certain taste or flavour; a very small amount; a hint; a trace, slight idea; an inkling.

(2) A suspicion; a suggestion (dated; now rare).

1766: From the Middle French soupçon (suspicion), from the twelfth century Old French sospeçon (suspicion, worry, anxiety) derived from the Medieval Latin suspectiōnem & suspectiōn (stem of suspectiō), from the Classical Latin suspīciō (suspicion) and a doublet of the now obsolete suspection.  In Late Latin, the word seems to have evolved as suspectionem although there no consensus among etymologists.  It is not a doublet of suspicion although such use has been seen.

In English, use of soupçon spiked after the French Revolution (1789), something owed less to literature than to political pamphleteers and technical writers such as the authors of cookbooks.  It tended to decline in the twentieth century and beyond as the fashion for the interpolation of obviously foreign words faded, especially when English offered so many well-known and serviceable synonyms (although more than a soupcon of those enjoyed a recent foreign past): crumb, drop, pinch, scintilla, shred, bit, smidgen, trace, whiff, dab, dash, hint, iota, particle, speck, suggestion, tinge, whisper, modicum & vestige.  Although there will always be those inclined to “drop it in” wherever possible, it’s probably most natural in English if writing of something French, a recipe, a style, a cut, an era et al although not all approve of “Gallicisms”.  In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the evolution of English had for centuries depended on the absorption of “…words and phrases that were once Gallicisms but, having prospered, are no longer recognizable as such; and of the number now on trial, some will doubtless prosper in like manner” and commended “...the conversational usage of educated people in general, not… predilections or a literary fashion of the moment.”

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.