Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A concubine or woman slave in a harem.
Wiktionary
- n. A female slave in a harem, especially one in the Ottoman seraglio.
- n. A desirable or sexually attractive woman.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A female slave or concubine in the harem of the Turkish sultan.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a woman slave in a harem
Etymologies
- French, from Turkish ōdalik, chambermaid : ōdah, room + -lik, suff. expressing function.
Examples
“A further ironic implication of Farrell's, Boucher's, and Moore's use of the imagery of the odalisque is that the signification of "odalisque" as concubine is itself a projection of the European mind, since its original Turkish meaning is simply that of "'woman of the room [oda],' implying a general servant status" (Croutier 30-32).”
“Similarly, Boucher's model for an odalisque is not an actual Circassian, Georgian, or Abkhasian woman (as an odalisque in Turkey likely would have been) (Croutier 30); instead she is from Ireland, a not quite as foreign European colony, and the fantasy is safely controlled.”
“Whether Lalla Rookh, Larry Rourke, the Madonna Irlanda, or Mademoiselle O'Murphy, the Irish odalisque is no paradox or oxymoron.”
“If "odalisque" had been what Ray called an objectionable word, he would have thrown the picture out in the first place.”
“UP Pompeii: UK girl taken - to be turned into an "odalisque”
“odalisque", it is not only white girls that are taken, many from India and Sri Lanka are also taken”
“An elongated odalisque and a pair of unexpectedly spontaneous studies for the voluptuous fantasy "The Turkish Bath" remind us that distinctions between Romanticism and Neo-Classicism may be irrelevant.”
“Olympia," a contemporary odalisque propped on silken pillows, with a maid bearing flowers and a black cat in attendance, was accepted in 1865.”
“In "Feeling me" (2004), she shows herself naked, posed as an odalisque against a black background with her husband's hand (all we see of him) resting on her distended belly.”
“From the young loner in his garret, a conventional archetype in a conventional style; to the prophet unrecognised in Paris, a Tahitian odalisque glowing behind him in the cold studio; right up to the shorn and spectacled invalid staring out of the blue twilight of his days.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘odalisque’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Dirty Deeds, Acts & Villainous Arcana
Villains, evildoers, and the wonderful words to describe them.
putsch, internecine, galère, stygian, infernal, opprobrium, anathema, bruit, scurrility, mulct, misanthropic, invective and 102 more...
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the best words in french
it doesn't matter if you can speak french or not to add the word. you can add it for the way it sounds or what it means. it can only be one word. if you add it for what it means, comment on the lis...
pamplemousse, adieu, au revoir, visage, thé, louche, odalisque, perdu, absintheur, glibette, hibou, pommadeur and 9 more...
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The Decemberists for polite everyday conversation
opal, dolor, lithe, infanta, vagabond, courtesan, vestry, skein, dram, magenta, camisole, charlemagne and 8 more...
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Talking About Words
The favorite words of Talking Tyrants
dolorous, parsimonious, apotemnophilia, odalisque, tuberoinfundibular, morass, ostentatious, sybaritic, vermilion, onomatopoeia, eschatology, teleology and 49 more...
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The insulting ones
ingrate, sycophant, inane, wanton, pompous, vitriolic, ghastly, cesspool, abhor, highfalutin, obsequious, insidious and 25 more...
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xulilux's list
leviathan, destitute, iapetus, caesura, ineffable, eschew, phosphene, fungible, antediluvian, nomenclature, mottle, europa and 84 more...
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the lascivious
orgiastic, nymph, breathless, writhe, calypso, Medusa, virago, sapphic, catamite, bisou, buss, succubus and 22 more...
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Words that you discovered on Wordie
flibbertigibbet, humdudgeon, grawlix, upside, concinnity, aposiopesis, odalisque, angelology, cacoethes
vrncfreimuth odalisque- a chambermaid who was usually a virgin that was given to the sultan as a gift; if she was pretty she would move from being low on the totem pole to concubine , another wife. Feb 19, 2011
super-clarice oh I love this word, thanks for posting it Apr 30, 2009
mollusque In the mermaid suit Z[ora] was none too mobile and stretched out across the couch, a Piscean odalisque.
—Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002, Middlesex, p. 495 Aug 16, 2008