oeuvre
pronunciation
How to pronounce oeuvre in British English:
UK [ˈɜ:vrə]
How to pronounce oeuvre in American English:
US [ˈɚvrə]
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- Noun:
- the total output of a writer or artist (or a substantial part of it)
Word Origin
- oeuvre
- oeuvre: hors d’oeuvre [18] In French, hors d’oeuvre means literally ‘outside the work’ – that is, ‘not part of the ordinary set of courses in a meal’. The earliest record of its use in English is in the general sense ‘out of the ordinary’ (‘The Frenzy of one who is given up for a Lunatick, is a Frenzy hors d’ oeuvre … something which is singular in its kind’, Joseph Addison, Spectator 1714), but this did not survive beyond the 18th century.Alexander Pope, in his Dunciad 1742, was the first to use the word in its modern culinary sense. (French oeuvre ‘work’, incidentally, comes from Latin opera ‘work’, source of or related to English copious, manoeuvre, opera, operate, and opulent.)=> d'oeuvre, copious, manoeuvre, manure, opera, operate, opulent
- oeuvre (n.)
- "a work," especially a work of literature, also "the body of work produced by an artist," 1875, from French oeuvre "work" (12c.), from Latin opera (see opus).
Example
- 1. His whole oeuvre is quite extraordinary if you pick out the best bits .
- 2. His oeuvre is melodramatic and sensational , full of fraud , mistaken identity and murder .
- 3. Cheever 's books have slipped from public notice in part because his oeuvre lacks a charismatic torchbearer like holden caulfield .
- 4. Another strategy is to let scientists themselves take care of the job -- after all , they should know which papers are part of their oeuvre .
- 5. The connections and parallels sustain themselves throughout burton 's oeuvre to the extent that , in the end , perhaps tim burton 's films are a unified project because they are a repeated filmic attempt at a constructed and now expected self-portrait .