Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

exquisite corpse

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.38 in modern English

Syllables: exquisite -corpse
IPA

35

Scrabble Score

15

Letters

2

Syllables

11

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A collective art game in which several collaborating artists assemble a sentence or image, usually by following a prompt, or being allowed to see the only last contribution.

Uncountable

noun

A sentence or image created as a result of this game.

Countable

Example Sentences

"[…]had collaborated on the Surrealist game of cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse), in which artists made collective collages of words or images."
"Breton insisted that the collective endeavor to compose an exquisite corpse leads to a pool of epiphanies, analogies, connections that would have been impossible otherwise."

Etymology

Calque of French cadavre exquis. First coined in 1925 by surrealists André Breton, Marcel Duhamel, Jacques Prévert, and Yves Tanguy in a similar manner to consequences; the first example was constructed from the following prompt: Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (“the exquisite corpse will drink new wine”).

Usage

Inflected Forms

exquisite corpses (plural)

Questions

What does exquisite corpse mean?: A collective art game in which several collaborating artists assemble a sentence or image, usually by following a prompt, or being allowed to see the only last contribution.
Where does exquisite corpse come from?: Calque of French cadavre exquis. First coined in 1925 by surrealists André Breton, Marcel Duhamel, Jacques Prévert, and Yves Tanguy in a similar manner to consequences; the first example was constructed from the following prompt: Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (“the exquisite corpse will drink new wine”).

How to pronounce exquisite corpse

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