Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An appetizer served before a meal.
Wiktionary
- n. A small, light, and usually savory first course in a meal.
- n. by extension Anything of secondary concern; not the primary one.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a dish served as an appetizer before the main meal
Etymologies
- From French hors d'œuvre (Wiktionary)
- French hors d'œuvre : hors, outside + de, of + œuvre, (the main) work. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“These he calls a hors d'oeuvre of some pious copyist.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hors d'oeuvre’.
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Food words
molecular gastronomy, gastronomic, chef, sous-chef, pastry, patisserie, bakery, mandoline, champagne flute, chinois, dough, knead and 15 more...
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Tricky Words from French
Loanwords from French -- both established and wet behind the ears -- that are tricky to spell or pronounce properly.
trompe l'oeil, hors d'oeuvre, oeuvre, objet d'art, objet trouvé, contretemps, milieu, métier, mise en scène, mise en place, éclat, faineant and 64 more...
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Garbiage
word trash
parapluie, brobdingnagian, plié, segue, laconic, pastoral, phthisis, belly, synecdoche, apotheosis, sepulchral, mollification and 40 more...
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Words that start with a silent H
honor, honest, heir, herb, hors d'oeuvre, hour, homage, hola, heiress, hombre, honorific, honorable and 1 more...
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fernblatt's list
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (H)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
haberdashery, hailstone, halcyon, halibut, halo, hamadryad, hammock, harangue, harbour, harebell, harlequin, harp and 104 more...
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kalidas's Words
crepuscular, mellifluous, ephemeral, diaphanous, zeitgeist, geisterfahrer, infinite, eternal, idyllic, azure, reminiscent, oblivion and 521 more...
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spoon
being items relating to food, cooking and the kitchen.
spoon, fork, beef, slice, dozen, eggs, simmer, broil, salad, soup, stock, lard and 287 more...
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MacBean's Words
verisimilitude, antediluvian, schadenfreude, eviscerate, exsanguinate, onomatopoeia, aesthetic, apocryphal, aubergine, byronic, brouhaha, bordello and 523 more...
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encyclopedia gustatorica
béchamel, tart, pie, cupcake, roux, jambalaya, étouffé, succulent, plum, pomegranate, peach, apple and 300 more...
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oh-eee-oh-eee-oh
words with oe that aren't:
plurals (tomatoes)
tenses (vetoed)
or compound latin thingies (electroencephalograph)amoeba, subpoena, throe, cooee, phoebe, goethe, oeuvre, pekoe, loess, sloe, canoe, phooey and 20 more...
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Little Bites
appetizer, antipasto, gravlax, caponata, ceviche, rumaki, drumette, potato skin, crudites, escargot, pu pu, mandram and 55 more...
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borrowed foreign phrases
Some common phrases borrowed from other languages.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hors d'oeuvre.
renumeratedfrog It simply means an "appetizer" but the funny thing about this word is that it sounds almost like the English "order" pronounced with a French accent. Aug 21, 2008
treeseed literally meaning "outside the work"
I find this definition adds greatly to my love of the word. I am ashamed to say I have used this word all my life and I never really knew what I was saying...the French language is filled with these beautiful descriptive nouns. Another case in point pomme de terre. Apr 30, 2008
reesetee Haha! Clever, oroboros. :-) Aug 20, 2007
oroboros Working women du nuit? Aug 16, 2007