Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to the film noir genre.
- adj. Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
- adj. Suggestive of danger or violence.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Black; in roulette, the space in which are placed bets on the color of the number coming black.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- From film noir and French noir (Wiktionary)
- Short for film noir + Sense 2, short for French roman noir, black novel. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Editor Tim McLoughlin has selected stories that truly deserve the term noir, which is unusual now that "noir" seems to be used for everything that isn't a cozy.”
“The term noir was coined in 1946 by French critics reviewing a group of American thrillers, including Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and Otto Preminger's Laura, both from 1944, to mark a phenomenon they thought new to American cinema, a "harsh," "true to life" quality, a mood of "pessimism and despair.”
“One, a lot of noir is about male characters, not female.”
Jodi Compton Answers Questions About Her First Book, The 37th Hour
“It's no coincidence, I'd say, that Isaac Asimov wrote both science fiction and murder mysteries, or that the Illuminatus Trilogy and similar works appeal to many sf readers, or that noir is everywhere in strange fiction these days, even secondary world fantasy.”
“Film noir is an interesting one, because most of the time the protagonist doesn't win.”
“Most film noir is about a struggle for meaning in a cynical, sick world; sometimes its just about love.”
“Yes some classics will appear on many menus (boudin noir, quenelles) but ther will be great variety.”
“I have a wine-loving friend who swears that pinot noir is the "perfect" wine to complement duck.”
“I agree that a certain noir feel lends itself easily to first person POV.”
“The premise of this comic noir is beyond intriguing - it is genius!”
Sonnenfeld Still Eyeing Timberlake As Search Commences For Actor To Get ‘Moist’ » MTV Movies Blog
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘noir’.
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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WORDNIK - words found in "Wordnik"
kino, inro, indow, in, ikon, id, drown, drink, down, ink, dork, dor and 54 more...
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style
film / art visual styles, genres. technical or otherwise.
(art, style, genre, storytelling, visual, communication, technique, randomness)neo-noir, tilt-shift, grindhouse, cubist, musical, dark satire, slapstick, extreme, absurdism, dadaism, post-modernism, pop and 18 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
cindywrites's Words
chiaroscuro, mollycoddle, feckless, evocative, provocative, invocation, beckon, allay, becalm, console, lull, soothe and 479 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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polymorph's Words
pornerastic, yeaux, enantiadromia, synchronicity, transubstantiation, sensimilla, slough, scaphism, symbiosis, prolix, orgiastic, cryptogamic and 245 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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words that trip off the tongue
ideology, phallocentric, parapraxis, gelid, illusion, tangible, tangibility, crux, medusa, noir, chloroform, chap and 98 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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favorite words
ennui, bonhomie, eschew, liaison, serendipity, lovely, dusk, kitten, epitome, sexy, beloved, darling and 396 more...
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MsHalston's Words
theoretically, insufferable, apolitico, milquetoast, egregious, aplomb, elan, fraught, flummox, befrocked, moll, molten and 605 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for noir.
victoriapl black (French) Dec 1, 2007