Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A detailed memorandum, especially one that lists documents or accounts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A memorandum or note, especially one containing a more or less detailed list of documents.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A note or memorandum, esp. one containing an enumeration of documents.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A detailed statement, especially one containing a detailed listing of documents or accounts
  • noun A form of reinsurance that details the history of the risk

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, probably from bord, edge, margin, from Old French bort, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French

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Examples

  • Most Frenchmen now know that the bordereau was a forgery and without any real value.

    Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions 2007

  • Most Frenchmen now know that the bordereau was a forgery and without any real value.

    Oscar Wilde Harris, Frank 1916

  • He wasn't short of money and wasn't entangled with women, two of the most frequent motives for espionage at the time, but his superiors decided that the handwriting on the bordereau was his, and an Alsatian-Jewish scapegoat was convenient.

    NYT > Home Page 2010

  • He wasn't short of money and wasn't entangled with women, two of the most frequent motives for espionage at the time, but his superiors decided that the handwriting on the bordereau was his, and an Alsatian-Jewish scapegoat was convenient.

    NYT > Home Page By LEO DAMROSCH 2010

  • In september 1894 a list of French military documents called the bordereau was found by a French agent working in the German embassy.

    Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2008

  • Paty de Clam testified in secret that the handwriting samples matched those of the bordereau.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • The court-martial convened in secret on January 10 and the next day reached its preplanned conclusion: Esterhazy was not the author of the bordereau.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • He picked up the torn and faded bordereau, and placed it side by side on his desk with the petit bleu.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • Esterhazy was his friend and he had immediately recognized the handwriting on the bordereau as belonging to the major.

    Emancipation Michael Goldfarb 2009

  • Enfin "poser", il n'y avait plus de bordereau pour les depots de cheques.

    pinku-tk Diary Entry pinku-tk 2008

Comments

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  • A nice flowery term for bureaucracy.

    February 27, 2016

  • A lawyer can put on a show

    Of precedents, row upon row.

    It beggars belief

    To call it a "brief,"

    So name it instead "bordereau."

    July 12, 2017

  • Pronounced \ˌbȯr-də-ˈrō\

    July 17, 2017