Doctrinaire

[Wendalyn Nichols]

There's also "extraordinaire", and if you really want to push it,
"ordinaire" in the term "vin ordinaire"; I got these by searching on *aire
in the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictioanry CD-ROM. It also gives
"nondoctrinaire" and  "undoctrinaire."

The question of why these borrowings from French retained their French
endings and others did not is one I'll leave to the specialists.

Wendalyn Nichols

At 04:33 PM 10/4/02 -0400, you wrote:
>The results of my searches give me only two adjectives in English that end
>in -aire. Doctrinaire and debonnaire/debonaire (which doesn't HAVE to end
>in -aire).
>
>Are there more I am missing? And why do those two keep the -aire, when most
>others switch to -ary?
>
>Thanks for any help.
>
>Kathleen E. Miller
>Research Assistant to William Safire
>The New York Times