accolade

First attested in the 1620s, borrowed from French accolade, from Occitan acolada (“an embrace”), from acolar (“to embrace”), from Italian accollato, from Vulgar Latin *accollō (“to hug around the neck”), from Latin ad- + collum (“neck”) (English collar).

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /ˈæk.əˌleɪd/, /ˌæk.əˈlɑd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

accolade (plural accolades)

1. An expression of approval; praise. [from 1852]
2. A special acknowledgment; an award.

   This film is likely to pick up major accolades.

   • 2016 May 22, Phil McNulty, “Crystal Palace 1-2 Manchester United”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     Rooney led Manchester United up the Wembley steps to collect the FA Cup and add a missing medal to his collection - a richly deserved accolade.

3. An embrace of greeting or salutation.
   • 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh:  […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 131:

     […] for the tears stood in the old gentleman's eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him a-la-mode Françoise, and kissed him on both sides of the face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyes of his guest.

5. (historical) A salutation marking the conferring of knighthood, consisting of an embrace or a kiss, and a slight blow on the shoulders with the flat of a sword.
   • 1881, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages, Montreal, Que.: Dawson Brothers, →OCLC:

     “Rise, Sir Miles Hendon, Knight,” said the King, gravely—giving the accolade with Hendon’s sword—“rise, and seat thyself. Thy petition is granted. Whilst England remains, and the crown continues, the privilege shall not lapse.”

   • 1885, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, chapter III, in John Ormsby, transl., The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha […] In Four Vols, volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co. […], →OCLC, part I, page 130:

     As he had already told him, he said, there was no chapel in the castle, nor was it needed for what remained to be done, for, as he understood the ceremonial of the order, the whole point of being dubbed a knight lay in the accolade and in the slap on the shoulder, and that could be administered in the middle of a field; […] .

   • 1964, Jan Morris, “Four Cities”, in Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008, →ISBN:

     It was in the queer little Church of Vera Cruz, beneath the castle, that the Knights Templar performed their secret rites of chivalry, standing vigil over their arms all night, in all the mysterious splendour of seneschal, gonfalon, and accolade.

6. (music) A brace used to join two or more staves.
7. (US) Written Presidential certificate recognizing service by military personnel or civilians serving the US armed forces who died or were wounded in action between 1917 and 1918, or who died in service between 1941 and 1947, or died of wounds received in Korea between June 27, 1950 and July 27, 1954.
9. (architecture) An ornament composed of two ogee curves meeting in the middle, each concave toward its outer extremity and convex toward the point at which it meets the other.
10. (typography) Synonym of curly bracket

• (expression of approval or praise): panegyric

• collar

• (4) https://web.archive.org/web/20060209015723/http://www.afms1.belvoir.army.mil/dictionary/a.htm#accolade

accolade (third-person singular simple present accolades, present participle accolading, simple past and past participle accoladed)

1. (transitive) To embrace or kiss in salutation.
2. (transitive, historical) To confer a knighthood on.
3. (transitive) To confer praise or awards on.

   an accoladed novel

Borrowed from French accolade.

• IPA^(key): /ɑkoːˈlaːdə/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ac‧co‧la‧de

accolade f (plural accolades, diminutive accoladetje n)

1. (punctuations) brace, curly bracket ({ })
2. anything that resembles the above

Inherited from Middle French acolade, from Old French acolee (remade with the suffix -ade), from the verb acoler.

• IPA^(key): /a.kɔ.lad/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Homophone: accolades
• Hyphenation: ac‧co‧lade

accolade f (plural accolades)

1. curly bracket (brace)
2. (historical) accolade (knights)
3. embrace

   Synonym: embrassade

• → Danish: akkolade
• → German: Akkolade

accolade

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

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