Maigret chez le Ministre

In the course of reading this story, I bothered to look up the word 'chipie', which seems to be a term of abuse used of ladies by ladies.

According to Larousse, a woman of any age who is disagreeable, pretentious or 'grincheuse'. A word which it flags as 'familier', approximating to our 'slang'. I thought 'grincheuse' rather a good word, derived from 'grincher', to grind, as in grind one's teeth. With the adjective meaning someone who is disagreeable, always moaning or always in a bad temper.

While according to Littré, a woman of any age who is disagreeable or disdainful. A word which it flags as 'populaire', another approximation to our 'slang'. While the verb 'chiper', also slang, means to steal or to 'dérober'. Which last one might think is all about taking the coat off someone's back, but is actually derived from 'rober', as our rob or robber. My shorter Littré does not explain how robbing someone also came to mean coat, originally the sort of thing worn by people from the Middle East, the Roman province of Asia. Perhaps the long one would do better. Would it refer one to the English verb to disrobe, usually used reflexively, but admitting, I think, transitive usage.

Usage which does not follow the English at all well. But perhaps the English 'that cow next door has been poking her nose into my business again' gives a clue. I have been overdoing the etymology of the French, not known to many of the users of slang words such as 'chipie' - which does not in fact convey any more information than the English 'cow', no more, in fact, than that the speaker does not care for the person so referred to.

PS: this is one of the stories included in the Gambon version which we have on DVD and we shall view it again when I have finished reading it. Always interesting to see how stories get adapted for the screen. What gets left out, what gets added.