Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

avant la lettre

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.18 in modern English

Syllables: avan-t la let-tre
IPA

16

Scrabble Score

13

Letters

3

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

prep_phrase

Before the term was coined (the term being a word or phrase used just previously in an anachronistic way)

Example Sentences

"Suffragettes were feminists avant la lettre."
"Could the Greeks of that time, whose minds were frustrated and demoralized by defeat and misery, be expected to give a welcome to those premature Quakers and to those Tolstoyans “avant la lettre”?"
"How is it, then, that Flaubert was a somber impressionist avant la lettre, when the school of painters was remarkably cheerful with the exception of both Degas and Van Gogh?"
"as St Francis of Assisi was recently discovered to be an ecologist avant la lettre"
"a work with a title that is a marketing dream, pure Julia Child well avant la lettre: Le Cuisinier français, The French Chef."
"One might even advance the case for Wilde's being a celebrity avant la lettre, famous partly for being famous"

Etymology

Borrowed from French avant la lettre (literally “before the letter”).

Origin

Source language: French

Word Breakdown

Root: avant la lettre

Phrases

proto-

Frequently Paired Words

retronym proto proto-

Questions

What does avant la lettre mean?: Before the term was coined (the term being a word or phrase used just previously in an anachronistic way)
Where does avant la lettre come from?: It is traced to French.

How to pronounce avant la lettre

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