tour de force
an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; stroke of genius: Herman Melville's Moby Dick was a tour de force.
a particularly adroit maneuver or technique in handling a difficult situation: The way the president got his bill through the Senate was a tour de force.
a feat requiring unusual strength, skill, or ingenuity.
Origin of tour de force
1Words Nearby tour de force
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use tour de force in a sentence
In her aching memoir, she embarks on a tour de force examination of her childhood, marked first by her mother’s abandoning her when she was a toddler and later by the death of her beloved father.
Through the late 1960s, Capote claimed to be writing his masterpiece, his tour de force based on his swans, but several deadlines passed for it.
‘Capote’s Women’ is catnip to older pop culture fans | Terri Schlichenmeyer | December 4, 2021 | Washington BladeAt 35, Hawa Hassan is already a tour de force when it comes to Somali food in America.
Understated yet opulent, measured, and intensely creepy, it’s a tour de force in balancing uncomfortable levels of tension and suspense with deep pathos.
One Good Thing: The gorgeous horror movie St. Maud finds religious ecstasy in self-destruction | Aja Romano | May 14, 2021 | VoxPage’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame.
His family memoir, Sweet and Low, is a tour de force of reporting and memory—tender, curious, and exceptionally funny.
The Stacks: How Leonard Chess Helped Make Muddy Waters | Alex Belth | August 2, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIt is a tour de force of reporting: 13,000 words on a two-week deadline.
It's also a masterpiece of choreographed c--tery—Joffrey's final tour de force.
Game of Thrones’ ‘The Lion and the Rose’: Joffrey’s Demented, Shocking Royal Wedding | Andrew Romano | April 14, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAnd, of course, she's best known for her ball-busting tour de force as Ed Helms's wife in The Hangover.
‘Surviving Jack’ Star Rachael Harris Is No Longer ‘The Bitch' | Kevin Fallon | March 27, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAs a result, his version is a technical tour de force but a movie that never gets under your skin.
Why the Original ‘Birds’ is Superior to Hitchcock’s Version | Malcolm Jones | November 9, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAs a tour de force in the gentle art of lying, the snake-story is justly esteemed.
As a tour de force of geometrical imagination it would be difficult to parallel this hypothesis.
Archimedes | Thomas Little HeathThe physical tour de force, was one of those feats of agility in which Neb had been my instructor, ten years before.
Afloat And Ashore | James Fenimore CooperIf the Mastersingers was a little less successful as a work of art we should still have to regard it as an amazing tour de force.
Richard Wagner | John F. RuncimanThe music for such incidents cannot be of the highest beauty; here we have one of the cases of a tour de force.
Richard Wagner | John F. Runciman
British Dictionary definitions for tour de force
/ French (tur də fɔrs, English ˈtʊə də ˈfɔːs) /
a masterly or brilliant stroke, creation, effect, or accomplishment
Origin of tour de force
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for tour de force
[ (toor duh fawrs) ]
A feat accomplished through great skill and ability: “The speech was a tour de force; it swept the audience off its feet.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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