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  1. éclat love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Great brilliance, as of performance or achievement.
  2. n. Conspicuous success.
  3. n. Great acclamation or applause.
  4. n. Archaic Notoriety; scandal.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A burst, as of applause; acclamation; approbation: as, his speech was received with great éclat.
  2. n. Brilliant effect; brilliancy of success; splendor; magnificence: as, the éclat of a great achievement.
  3. n. Renown; glory.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A brilliant or successful effect; brilliance of success or effort; splendor; brilliant show; striking effect; glory; renown.

Etymologies

  1. From French, from éclater ("to burst out"), from Middle French esclater ("to break, break violently"), from Old French esclater ("to separate from, sunder out") (deverbal also in Old French: esclat), from Frankish *slaitan (“to split, break”), from Proto-Germanic *slaitijanan, causative of Proto-Germanic *slītanan (“to cut up, split”). Akin to Old High German sleizan ("to tear"), Old English slītan ("to split"). More at slice, slit. (Wiktionary)
  2. French, brilliance, from Old French esclat, splinter, from esclater, to burst out, splinter, probably of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. éclat
  1. renown

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Comments

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  • Dan337 (I started thumbing through my copy for it, but Google’s faster.)

    “Bankruptcy and repudiation are the spring-boards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show goes off here with éclat annually, as if all the joints of the agricultural machine were suent.”
                    — Henry David Thoreau. “Economy”. Walden. 1854. Sep 24, 2011

  • bilby Cite it here the same way you made your comment. Jul 23, 2010

  • niels The best known usage is probably from from Thoreau's Walden (pg 21), but I don't see how I can add another example. Jul 22, 2010

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‘éclat’ has been looked up 1763 times, loved by 4 people, added to 18 lists, commented on 3 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.