tableau

From French tableau, from Old French tablel (“a surface which is used primarily for painting”).

• (UK) enPR: tă-blō', IPA^(key): /ˈtæ.bləʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /tæˈbloʊ/

tableau (plural tableaux or tableaus)

1. A striking and vivid representation; a picture.
   • 2014, Paul Salopek, Blessed. Cursed. Claimed., National Geographic (December 2014)

     Stefania Chlouveraki, the project leader, stands at a long sorting table. She turns the colored fragments over and over in her fingertips. She fits each one into its place: a magnificent tableau of lions, crosses, pomegranate trees.

2. A vivid graphic scene of a group of people arranged as in a painting or bas relief sculpture.
3. (Britain, dated) Hence, an arrangement of actors in static positions on stage, having the effect of pointing up a particular moment in the drama, conventionally revealed by opening tableau curtains (known as "tabs").
4. A table (two-dimensional presentation of data).
5. (card games) Mostly in solitaire card games, but also in other card and board games, the main area, where random cards can be arranged.
6. (logic) A semantic tableau.

• grand tableau

• tabulae, tabulæ

• IPA^(key): /ta.blo/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -o

tableau m (plural tableaux)

1. painting
2. picture (a captured image)
3. writing board
4. table (arrangement of rows and columns)
5. chart

• tableau noir

• “tableau” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).