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Tour de force   /tʊr di fɔrs/   Listen
Tour de force

noun
1.
A masterly or brilliant feat.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tour de force" Quotes from Famous Books



... correctly or not. No reader can doubt that he has done so. Nor is the reader ever struck with the affectation of an assumed dialect. The words come as though they had been written naturally,—though not natural to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a tour de force; and successful as such a tour de force so seldom is. But though Thackeray was successful in adopting the tone he wished to assume, he never quite succeeded, as far as my ear can judge, in ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... Nor is the reader ever struck with the affectation of an assumed dialect. The words come as though they had been written naturally,—though not natural to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a tour de force; and successful as such a tour de force so seldom is. But though Thackeray was successful in adopting the tone he wished to assume, he never quite succeeded, as far as my ear can judge, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... was ever his tour de force. Each year he has strained and stimulated his art to surpass himself, seeking ever a finer and a brighter gold, a more celestial azure. Never had his gold been so golden, his azure so dazzlingly clear ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... Lee, at about eight o'clock, indignant subscribers began to arrive at the office. They had received their copies; but how? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls, delivered by a single shot, and a mere tour de force, through the glass of bedroom-windows. They had received them full in the face, like a base ball, if they happened to be up and stirring; they had received them in quarter-sheets, tucked in at separate windows; ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... was himself henceforth driven to be, and he asked only to be pirated, for he was sure not to be paid; but the honors of piracy resemble the colors of the begonia; they are showy but not useful. Here was a tour de force he had never dreamed himself equal to performing: two long, dry, quarterly, thirty or forty page articles, appearing in quick succession, and pirated for audiences running well into the hundred thousands; and not one person, man ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams



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