Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A style of painting that gives an illusion of photographic reality.
- n. A painting or effect created in this style.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable A genre of still life painting that exploits human vision to create the illusion that the subject of the painting is real.
- n. countable A painting of this kind.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a painting rendered in such great detail as to deceive the viewer concerning its reality
Etymologies
- From the French trompe-l’œil ("trompe l’oeil", literally "deceives the eye"), from trompe (“deceives”, the third-person singular indicative simple present form of tromper, “to deceive”) + l’ (“t’”, the prevocalic form of le, “the”) + œil ("eye"). (Wiktionary)
- French trompe l'œil : trompe, third person sing. present tense of tromper, to deceive + le, the + œil, eye. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘trompe l'oeil’.
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Ballardian
All things descriptive from JG
Ballardoperation mindfuck, pataphysics, wahrheitssensible..., polymorphism, postprandial, covalent, stygian, lucus a non lucendo, kafkaesque, leitmotif, fugacious, ablate and 77 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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New Words
idiopathic, quidditas, cloacal, peregrination, cyclamen, expatiate, pedantic, salonniere, manque, pelagic, exogenous, pellucid and 83 more...
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Loan words from French
gite, coq au vin, dernier cri, clique, hors d'œuvre, touché, naïve, coquette, bourgeois, contretemps, flâneur, film noir and 63 more...
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French words to throw around next ti...
This list is endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Mimes, Jerry Lewis, and the Society for the Propagation of French Stereotypes.
bon mot, bon vivant, boulevardier, accoutrement, ménage à trois, melee, coup de grace, elan, bete noir, agent provocateur, crème de la crème, haut monde and 53 more...
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English with Tongue
French words and phrases used by English speakers.
objet d'art, nom de plume, petite, bon voyage, avant-garde, faux pas, faux, touché, répondez, s'il vo..., rouge, papier mâché, joie de vivre and 85 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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Wordplayer's Wonderful Words
chaparral, grotesque, knork, newsmonger, thitherwards, fackeltanz, kakistocracy, sforzando, compendium, frump, inquere, phosphene and 100 more...
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parody's Words
defenestrate, behemoth, floss, macchiato, glom, emu, alpaca, crocheted, ampersand, charade, conflate, salacious and 193 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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kmalladi's favorites
edification, penchant, ablution, extricate, frank, triumvirate, trifecta, egregious, hoi polloi, articulate, antediluvian, brusque and 291 more...
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samoritan's Words
moxie, zarf, crepuscular, serenity, halcyon, powerfuller, instant classic, abecedary, trilobite, doomsters, 'da bome, evanescence and 149 more...
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Not Quite The Real Thang
masquerade, sham, counterfeit, shyster, phoney, bogus, pseudo, artificial, fabricated, mock, concocted, false and 158 more...
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Of French Origin
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redtagevent's Words
exiguous, numen, recondite, concatenate, tuistic, interstitial, peroration, asperity, alacrity, expatiate, farouche, rhodomontade and 112 more...
Tweets
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Prolagus See also Trompe-l'œil. Oct 22, 2008
whichbe A French term literally meaning "trick the eye." Sometimes called illusionism, it's a style of painting which gives the appearance of three-dimensional, or photographic realism. It flourished from the Renaissance onward. The discovery of linear perspective in fifteenth-century Italy and advancements in the science of optics in the seventeenth-century Netherlands enabled artists to render object and spaces with eye-fooling exactitude. Both playful and intellectually serious, trompe artists toy with spectators' seeing to raise questions about the nature of art and perception. (From ArtLex) Jun 4, 2008