Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A style in art reflecting Chinese influence through use of elaborate decoration and intricate patterns.
- n. An object reflecting Chinese artistic influence.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Chinese conduct, methods, or ways of doing things; a Chinese characteristic.
- n. A Chinese curio, knickknack, or product: as, “Japanese tea-trays, chinoiseries,” etc., Miss Braddon.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Chinese conduct, art, decoration, or the like; also, a specimen of Chinese manners, art, decoration, etc.
- n. a style in art reflecting Chinese influence, being elaborately decorated and intricately patterned.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a style in art reflecting Chinese influence; elaborately decorated and intricately patterned
Etymologies
- From French chinoiserie ("Chinese-esque") (Wiktionary)
- French, from chinois, Chinese, from Chine, China. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Dear rootlesscosmo: Thanks for the party and also the "chinoiserie" explanation which is very Western.”
“The japanese lacquer screen makes an ideal headboard and the surrounding tester and draperies gives the bed an over-the-top European 'chinoiserie' grandness.”
“Once they were alone, Gran hobbled over to the brandy decanter atop a chinoiserie chest.”
“Shivani: In "Letter to Alfred Corn," we overhear a conversation with a friend: "I'll be back in New York, feeling ten times more alien/than where the polyglot boulevards intersect, linking up/11e and 20e, Maghreb, punk chic, kashruth, chinoiserie.”
“This meant ornate silk chinoiserie suits, over-sized sequin obis and voluminous silk jumpers a la Bianca Jagger in rich tones of aubergine, turquoise and gold.”
“Outside is a riot of minarets, towers and domes; inside the most sumptuous chinoiserie anywhere in Britain.”
“She admires the club's cheerful preppy-ness, with its palm-tree wallpaper and chinoiserie upholstery in coral, chocolate brown, apple green and shell pink.”
“Decorated with chinoiserie scenes of musicians, it bears the charming inscription in Latin of its maker: "Ioannes Goermans Me Fecit Parisis 1754" Joannes Goermans made me in Paris, 1754.”
“Lars Fisk plays with fake chinoiserie and other aspects of fetishized foreignness.”
“On Saturday afternoon, the Duchess stepped out to Santa Barbara Racquet and Polo Club for a Foundation Polo Challenge that benefits the American Friends of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry in one more frock --a silver-and-marble-grey, hand-painted chinoiserie silk dress by Jenny Packham.”
The Huffington Post: Kate Middleton Wears Roksanda Ilincic, DVF Jenny Packham In California (PHOTOS)
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chinoiserie’.
-
250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
Public List: Free Association
Read the top word on the list and add a word that you associate with it. The association may be semantic, etymological, structural, literary, personal, etc.
Rules:
1. In t...mounch, mensch, trench, war, harmony, guitar, cigar, bubblegum, baseball cards, shortstop, bear, chained and 72 more...
-
the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
-
All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
tatterdemalion, panopticon, idioglossia, hypnagogue, hypnopomp, defenestration, anacoluthon, scofflaw, affront, edifying, palimpsest, naufrage and 475 more...
-
maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
-
colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
-
Favorite Tangible Object Words
Trimming the "Chained Bear's Favorites" list so I don't crash people's computers... like my own...
castanets, whaup, budgie, wallabies, ring-wraith, hobbit, chinchilla, guano, merganser, phalarope, phalarope, curlew and 138 more...
-
bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1401 more...
-
Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
-
Words
Words I like.
jejune, eunoia, swallow, spelunk, milquetoast, echolalia, trumble, toothsome, synecdoche, taciturn, kerfuffle, aleatoric and 98 more...
-
lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
-
ifjuly's list
favorite words. some are made up injokes between me and my husband or family.
skein, zaftig, july, bed, orifice, aesthete, ink, parce-que, desormais, cake, pusillanimous, pulse and 531 more...
-
judith's word inbox
collocated, carnaval, articulate, reticulated, cilia, sardonic, aesthetics, tenacity, tensile, jubilant, ebullient, ethereal and 206 more...
-
Art Terms
mannerism, nonrepresentational, pointillism, serigraph, alla prima, trompe l'oeil, assemblage, arabesque, polychromatic, naive art, lumina, impasto and 104 more...
-
verbophilia
for the words I love to use, want to use, or just simply enjoy.
kernkompetenz, zugzwang, yab-yum, zoetrope, asemic writing, vulpine, flarf, spoetry, eye rhyme, verity, vita, vonlenska and 26 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for chinoiserie.
treeseed Just a little trick of the ear and the mind free associates with chained, even though the "shee" of chinoiserie sounds nothing like the "chay" of chained. See Free Association Feb 4, 2008