contretemps

English

WOTD – 2 January 2008

Etymology

Borrowed from French contretemps.

Pronunciation

The plural (spelled identically) is pronounced with final /z/ or, as in French, like the singular.

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒn.tɹə.tɑ̃ŋ/
(US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑːn.tɹə.tɑ̃/
Audio (US): (file)

Noun

contretemps (plural contretemps)

An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event.
Synonyms: hitch, mishap
- 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 2:
  ...and said "she had been the most efficient friend of the charity;" and whether a whisper that had gone forth respecting her contretemps with the strange man was spread, or it had fortunately been so well managed by the Count as to have escaped observation...
- 1896, Bret Harte, The Indiscretion of Elsbeth:
  "I see that you are a born American citizen--and an earlier knowledge of that fact would have prevented this little contretemps. You are aware, Mr. Hoffman, that your name is German?"
- 1932, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XII, in Pirates of Venus‎^[1], published 1934:
  What a strange contretemps! Its suddenness left me temporarily speechless; the embarrassment of Duare was only too obvious. Yet it was that unusual paradox, a happy contretemps--for me at least.
- 1955 September 15, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part 1, page 77:
  Despite this contretemps, the publicity warmed the porcelain cockles of her heart—and made my rattles shake with awful glee.
- 1960 June 13, “Emily Post Is Dead Here at 86; Writer was Arbiter of Etiquette”, in New York Times:
  Mrs. Post was the center of a notable contretemps when she spilled a spoonful of berries at a dinner of the Gourmet Society here in 1938.
- 1991, Rebecca Goldstein, The Dark Sister, Penguin Books, published 1993, page 37:
  The small flap over the pronunciation of her name was but the first, and the least, of the contretemps of the succeeding session.
- 2004 June 13, Sunday Oregonian:
  It won't rank with the doping scandals in track and field and baseball's steroid controversy but the Rose Cup race had its own little contretemps last year.
- 2018 June 26, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “Jonathan Franzen Is Fine With All of It”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:
  It is worth considering what the misperceptions about him might be if the whole “contretemps with Oprah,” as he calls it, hadn’t happened.
- 2024 May 4, Guy Chazan, Leila Abboud, “Le Pen strains ties with German far-right”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2:
  The spat was just the latest in a series of contretemps between the RN and the AfD.
(fencing) An ill-timed pass.