élan
/eɪˈlɑːn/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.00 in modern English
3
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Sam, carried away by the élan of the performance, was unable to resist joining them."
- "The goal of the Cultural Revolution was to radicalize the whole society, to create mass participation at all levels of decision-making, and to restore the revolutionary élan of the 1940s."
- "A pocket calculator was the closest that most 1970s consumers came to owning anything with computational power, even if all it could do was basic math. Those tiny gizmos seemed enticing because they offered rare glimpses into the enigmatic world of technology, and the Sinclair Executive also had the élan of being the first one."
- "Mary Ellen had never seen any woman, with the exception of Abigail, take such an active role in the company of men, though Abigail did it with élan and never directly or conspicuously."
- "Despite [the] Holmesian frame story, the overall voice of the series is fresh and original, Horowitz writing with the effortless élan that distinguishes all of his work."
Etymology
Borrowed from French élan.