contretemps

Borrowed from French contretemps.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒn.tɹə.tɑ̃ŋ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kɑːn.tɹə.tɑ̃/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

contretemps (plural contretemps)

1. An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event.

   Synonyms: hitch, mishap

   • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume II, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 2:

     ...and said "she had been the most efficient friend of the charity;" and whether a whisper that had gone forth respecting her contretemps with the strange man was spread, or it had fortunately been so well managed by the Count as to have escaped observation...

   • 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?"

   • 1932, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XII, in Pirates of Venus‎, published 1934:

     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 June 13, “Emily Post Is Dead Here at 86; Writer was Arbiter of Etiquette”, in New York Times:

     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.

   • 1991, Rebecca Goldstein, The Dark Sister, Penguin Books, published 1993, page 37:

     The small flap over the pronunciation of her name was but the first, and the least, of the contretemps of the succeeding session.

   • 2004 June 13, Sunday Oregonian:

     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.

   • 2018 June 26, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “Jonathan Franzen Is Fine With All of It”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     It is worth considering what the misperceptions about him might be if the whole “contretemps with Oprah,” as he calls it, hadn’t happened.

   • 2024 May 4, Guy Chazan, Leila Abboud, “Le Pen strains ties with German far-right”, in FT Weekend, page 2:

     The spat was just the latest in a series of contretemps between the RN and the AfD.

2. (fencing) An ill-timed pass.

From contre- +‎ temps, by calque of Italian contrattempo.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.tʁə.tɑ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

contretemps m (plural contretemps)

1. (music) offbeat, backbeat

   à contretemps ― syncopated

2. a contretemps, a hitch, a hold-up, a setback

   Synonym: empêchement

• “contretemps”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.