contretemps
English
WOTD – 2 January 2008
Etymology
Borrowed from French contretemps.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɒn.tɹə.tɑ̃ŋ/
- (US) IPA(key): /kɑːn.tɹə.tɑ̃/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
contretemps (plural contretemps)
- An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event; a hitch
- (fencing) An ill-timed pass.
Quotations
- 1896 - Bret Harte, The Indiscretion of Elsbeth
- "I see that you are a born American citizen--and an earlier knowledge of that fact would have prevented this little contretemps. You are aware, Mr. Hoffman, that your name is German?"
- 1934 - Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pirates of Venus, chapter 12
- What a strange contretemps! Its suddenness left me temporarily speechless; the embarrassment of Duare was only too obvious. Yet it was that unusual paradox, a happy contretemps--for me at least.
- 1960 - "Emily Post Is Dead Here at 86; Writer was Arbiter of Etiquette", New York Times, September 27
- Mrs. Post was the center of a notable contretemps when she spilled a spoonful of berries at a dinner of the Gourmet Society here in 1938.
- 2004 - Sunday Oregonian, June 13
- It won't rank with the doping scandals in track and field and baseball's steroid controversy but the Rose Cup race had its own little contretemps last year.
Plural Usage
- 1991, Rebecca Goldstein, The Dark Sister, Penguin Books, 1993, p.37:
- The small flap over the pronunciation of her name was but the first, and the least, of the contretemps of the succeeding session.
Translations
an unforeseen or embarrassing event
|
(fencing) ill-timed pass
French
Etymology
From contre- + temps, by calque of Italian contrattempo.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kɔ̃.tʁə.tɑ̃/
Further reading
- “contretemps” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
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