Not to be confused with Falcon
A flacon (from Late Latin flasco, meaning "bottle"; cf. "flagon") is a small, often decorative, bottle. It has an opening seal or stopper and is designed to hold valuable liquids which may deteriorate upon contact with the air. They are widespread in the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the cosmetics industry. They are generally made of glass for perfumes, but can also be made out of plastics for other uses.[1]
Manufacturing techniques
[
edit
]
The plastic bottles can be manufactured using different processes depending on the size and the proposed application (i.e. what the content will be, what the surrounding environment will be etc.). A common technique is blow molding. Like any object made by extrusion, it is possible to produce multilayer plastic bottles. This is called coextrusion. The combination of different materials or colours can be used to produce flacons with different properties, such as: impermeability to light, oxygen, recycled inner layer. The glass bottles are manufactured by blow molding.
In popular culture
[
edit
]
Charles Baudelaire wrote a poem about the flacon, entitled Le Flacon (The Perfume Flask).[2]
See also
[
edit
]
Other words derived from flasco:
References
[
edit
]
Curiously enough, the second part of "flacon" does have something like this meaning in French, although it is more usual to use it as a term of abuse, something like "a**hole" or "s**thead" in English. It can also be used as an adjective to mean "stupid" or "idiotic." The French like this word and its variant "connard," which is generally used to mean something like "fool" or "idiot." A more polite word for the female part is "chatte," which has the more endearing feel of "pussy" in English, kind of warm and furry.
The French word for whale, however, is "baleine," so I don't see where the whale comes into it... (Ahem [cough cough]). "Blanc de baleine " is spermaceti. (Don't get nervous, boys, this is just the stuff they used to burn in those whale-oil lamps they used in great-grandpappy's day.)
BTW, a lot of the French-speaking SAs I've encountered in the States don't use the word "flacon" at all when referring to the container; they say "bouteille" (bottle), perhaps under the influence of English. Hélas... ce qu'ils font de notre belle langue!