longueur

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French longueur (literally “length”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /lɒŋˈ(ɡ)əː/

Noun

longueur (plural longueurs)

1. (authorship) A lengthy passage in a dramatic or literary work, especially a dull or tedious one; a period of boredom.
   • 1998 August 17, Adam Gopnik, “Man Goes To See a Doctor”, in The New Yorker‎^[1]:

     Most of the reasons given for its disappearance make sense: people are happier, busier; the work done by the anti-Freudian skeptics has finally taken hold of the popular imagination, so that people have no time for analytic longueurs and no patience with its mystifications.

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 30:

     He cultivated the aura, if not quite of the Anti-Christ, at least of an Anti-Sun King, discountenancing his uncle and shocking the dévots by preferring the intimacy and informality of a clique of drinking companions to the formal longueurs of the courtly round […] .

   • 2015 October 5, Michiko Kakutani, “Review: ‘City on Fire,’ Garth Risk Hallberg’s Novel of New York in the Bad Old Days”, in New York Times‎^[2]:

     [T]he reader can’t help feeling that a few judicious nips and tucks might have dispersed the longueurs that waft around the third quarter of the book.

   • 2024 April 22, Adrian Searle, “Venice Biennale 2024 review – everything everywhere all at once”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Claire Fontaine (who are actually a duo) have queered the phrase, lending its pungency and ambiguity to a biennale that I wish were nearly so succinct. There are longueurs. There are detours and incomprehensible delays.

French

Etymology

From long +‎ -eur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɔ̃.ɡœʁ/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

longueur f (plural longueurs)

1. length

Related terms

• à longueur de journée
• à longueur de temps
• longue
• longueur d’onde
• saut en longueur
• sauteur en longueur

Further reading

• “longueur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.