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Apr 5, 2017
This week’s theme
Words with irregular plurals

This week’s words
chrysalis
imago
tour de force
bourgeois
oxymoron

tour de force
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

tour de force

PRONUNCIATION:
(toor duh FORS)
plural tours de force (toor duh FORS)

MEANING:
noun: A feat of strength, skill, or ingenuity: an exceptional performance or achievement.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French tour (turn, feat) + de (of) + force (strength). Earliest documented use: 1802.

USAGE:
“Listening to this breathtakingly brilliant tour de force made me appreciate why they call Pushkin the Russian Shakespeare.”
Sue Arnold; Evgenii Onegin by Pushkin; The Guardian (London, UK); Jun 8, 2012.

See more usage examples of tour de force in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile. -Earl Warren, jurist (1891-1974)

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