funambulesque

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English[edit]

Adjective[edit]

funambulesque (comparative more funambulesque, superlative most funambulesque)

  1. (rare) Like a tightrope walker; delicately balanced, precarious.
    • 1918, Arthur Symons, Colour Studies in Paris, page 49:
      Visitors to the Salon du Camp de Mars cannot fail to have noticed a full-length portrait by Whistler, the portrait of a gentleman of somewhat uncertain age, standing in an attitude half chivalrous, half funambulesque, his hand lightly posed on a small cane.
    • 2013, Simon Winder, Danubia, Picador, published 2014, page 156:
      Some aristocrats in Royal Hungary rather agreed with the Transylvanians, but others – a sufficient number – were relieved to be under Habsburg protection and saw Transylvania as semi-orientalized, disloyal and religiously funambulesque.