tournure

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English

Etymology

French, from tourner (“to turn”).

Noun

tournure (countable and uncountable, plural tournures)

  1. Manner, bearing.
    • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter III, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume I, London: Henry Colburn, , published 1842, →OCLC, page 25:
      Fortunately, your Parisian tournure will save your vivacity from vulgarity. Though, I must say, not one English girl in a thousand is to be trusted out of the security of insipidity; but you are French enough to be animated without being pert.
    • 1879, Henry James, Daisy Miller, London: Harper & Brothers:
      Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess.
  2. Turn; contour; figure.
  3. Phrasing, turn of phrase.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Francesca Carrara. , volume I, London: Richard Bentley, , (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 246:
      Voiture belonged to a race of poets essentially French, who sacrificed to the graces instead of the muses; to whom Cupid, with his wings and arrows, was the ideal of love, and whose art of poetry consisted in epigram, tournure, readiness, and facility.
  4. Any device used by women to expand the skirt of a dress below the waist; a bustle.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “tournure”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

French

Etymology

From tourner +‎ -ure.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tuʁ.nyʁ/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio (Canada):(file)

Noun

tournure f (plural tournures)

  1. (informal) appearance, shape
  2. (figuratively) turn, change in circumstance or temperament
  3. (linguistics) phrasing, turn of phrase
  4. (historical) tournure, bustle
  5. (dated) peel (of a fruit)

Derived terms

Descendants

Further reading

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