trompe l'oeil

See also: trompe-l'oeil, trompe l'œil, and trompe-l'œil

English

WOTD – 15 May 2011

Alternative forms

Trompe l'oeil of a portrait subject escaping his frame.

• trompe l’œil, trompe-l’oeil, trompe-l’œil

Etymology

Borrowing from French trompe-l’œil (literally “deceives the eye”), from trompe (“deceives”, third-person singular present indicative of tromper) + l’ (“the”, prevocalic form of le) + œil (“eye”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tʀôɴp löy, IPA^(key): /tʁɔ̃p lœj/

Noun

trompe l’oeil (usually uncountable, plural trompe l’oeil or trompe l’oeils) (see usage notes)

1. (uncountable) A genre of painting that exploits human vision to create the illusion that the subject of the painting is real.
2. (countable) A painting of this kind.

Usage notes

• This phrase is sometimes misconstructed as trompe d’œil and trompe-d’œil, which, literally interpreted in French, means “deceives of eye”.
• In French, trompe-l’œil is an invariant noun; the same usage is reflected in the plural use of the English trompe l’oeil. Alternatively, trompe l’oeil is treated as a headless noun phrase, to which is suffixed -s to form a regular plural form. Still otherwise, some authors form novel plurals on modified etymological bases, such as the technically correct trompent-l’œil (“[they] deceive the eye”) and the ultimately mistaken trompe les yeux (“deceives the eyes”); however, such neologistic constructions are vanishingly rare.

Synonyms

• quodlibet

Translations

genre of still life painting

• Finnish: trompe-l'œil

• Russian: тромплей m (tromplej), оптическая иллю́зия (optičeskaja illjúzija), обма́н зрения (obmán zrenija)

painting of this kind

• Finnish: trompe-l'œil, optinen illuusio (fi)

• Russian: тромплей m (tromplej)

See also

• Trompe-l'œil on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• “‖trompe l’œil” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]

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Italian

Etymology

French

Noun

trompe l'oeil m (invariable)

1. trompe l'oeil