douce \doos\, adjective:
Sedate; modest; quiet.
“So should I have been, in my interview with Sir Thomas— how shall I put it— more douce?”
-- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Port Glasgow is to the east of Greenock, Gourock to the west. The latter town combines a douce middle-class residential area and a Ken MacLeod.
-- Edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection
Douce comes from the French word of the same spelling meaning "sweet." It became widely used in English after it was used in the Chanson of Roland, a epic poem written about Charlemagne.
