Word of the Day Archive
Thursday November 18, 1999
raconteur \rack-on-TUR\ , noun:
One who excels in telling stories and anecdotes.
An excellent raconteur, he had a varied stock of stories and enjoyed the joke just as much when it was on himself as he did when it was on some one else.
-- "Rockefeller Wit Endeared Him to Friends; He Relished Quip by Will Rogers About Him", New York Times, May 24, 1937
Korda's tone of voice is affectionate and urbane, his manner that of the accomplished raconteur who never spoils the story with a heavy-handed moral, relying for his effect on the telling anecdote and the apt phrase.
-- Lewis Lapham, "Adventures in the Book Trade", New York Times, May 23, 1999
He has an excellent raconteur's mind, memory, vocabulary and tongue, brings in a story just at the right time, in the right manner, serves his anecdotes perfectly either piping hot or ice-cold as tragedies.
-- Anatole Pohorilenko and James Crump, When We Were Three
Raconteur is from French, from raconter, "to relate, to tell, to narrate," from Old French, from re- + aconter,
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for raconteur
