# Frances
## English
### Pronunciation

* (UK, US) IPA: /ˈfɹænsɪz/
* Audio (US):(file)
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈfɹɑːnsɪz/
* Rhymes: (UK, US) -ænsɪz, (Received Pronunciation) -ɑːnsɪz

### Etymology 1

From Old French Franceise, feminine form of Franceis, from Late Latin Franciscus (“Frankish”).

#### Proper noun

Frances
* A female given name from Latin, masculine equivalent Francis.
** c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:Armado. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee. Costard. O! marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this.
** 1883, Wilkie Collins, Heart and Science, Chatto and Windus, page 227:"My name is Frances. Don't call me Fanny!" "Why not?" "Because it's too absurd to be endured! What does the mere sound of Fanny suggest? A flirting dancing creature - plump and fair, and playful and pretty! - - - Call me Frances - a man's name, with only the difference between an i and an e. No sentiment in it, hard, like me."
** 1961, Janet Frame, Owls Do Cry, →ISBN, page 97:My other sisters had interesting names. There was Francie, that was Frances, and though she wore slacks and my father seemed angry with her, I thought she was some relation to Saint Francis, who, I believed, kept animals in his pocket and took them out and licked them, the way Francie licked a blackball or acid drop, for pure love.
* An unincorporated community in Johnson County, Indiana, United States.
* An unincorporated community in Crittenden County, Kentucky, United States.
* An unincorporated community in Pacific County, Washington, United States.
* A town in south-east South Australia, on the border with Victoria.

##### Usage notes

Also believed to be a surname, but this requires confirmation.

##### Related terms

* (variants): Francesca, Francine, France
* (pet forms): Fannie, Fanny, Fran, Francie, Frannie, Franny

##### Translations
### Etymology 2
#### Proper noun

Frances
* plural of France
** 1967, Eric A. Nordlinger, The Working-class Tories, page 236:The malaise of French politics has commonly been interpreted as a product of a deep-seated conflict between the ‘two Frances’.
** 1998, Shanny Peer, France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore, →ISBN, page 2:Although scholars have offered different chronologies and causalities for the move toward modernity, most have resolved the paradox of the two Frances by placing them in sequence: "diverse France gave way over time as modern centralized France gathered force."
** 2013, Making Sense of the Secular: Critical Perspectives, →ISBN, page 48:Was it the end of the long conflict between the two Frances? Yes and no.

### Anagrams

* enscarf

## Occitan
### Proper noun

Frances m (Limousin)
* a male given name, equivalent to English Francis

#### Related terms

* Fançon (diminutive)
* Francesa (feminine)
* Franceton (diminutive)
* Francicon (diminutive)
* Francilh
* Francilhon (diminutive)
* Francinet (diminutive)

### Further reading

* Yves Lavalade, Dictionnaire d'usage occitan/français - Limousin, Marche, Périgord, Institut d'Estudis Occitans dau Lemosin, 2010, →ISBN; page 306

## Portuguese
### Noun

Frances m (plural Franceses, feminine Francesa, feminine plural Francesas)
* Obsolete spelling of francês.

### Adjective

Frances (invariable)
* Obsolete spelling of francês.