Wiktionary

contretemps

English

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WOTD – 2 January 2008

Etymology

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Borrowed from French contretemps.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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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[1], 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[2], →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.

Translations

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French

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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contretemps m (plural contretemps)

  1. (music) offbeat, backbeat
    à contretemps ― syncopated
  2. a contretemps, a hitch, a hold-up, a setback
    Synonym: empêchement

Further reading

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