odalisque
English
Odalisque painted by Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1874)
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from French odalisque, from Ottoman Turkish اوطهلق (odalık, “chambermaid”), from اوده (oda, “room”).[1]
Noun
odalisque (plural odalisques)
- (historical) A female slave in a harem, especially one in the Ottoman seraglio.
- 1947 [1939], Ernst Jünger, translated by Stuart Hood, On the Marble Cliffs, New Directions, translation of Auf den Marmorklippen (in German), →LCCN, →OCLC, page 12:
- When the young Mauretanians were his guests in the little houses before the town gates, and he was of a good humour, it would come about that he displayed his odalisques as others would their jewels.
- 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72:
- Though I could see the titan odalisques and their garden and knew them to be no more than dream-stuff recalled, I could not escape from their fascination and the memory of the dream.
- 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 30, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 296:
- The Sector is borne in a padded Waggon, like some mechanickal Odalisque.
- A desirable or sexually attractive woman.
Antonyms
Translations
a female harem slave
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See also
References
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition (2008): "odalisque"
Anagrams
French
Etymology
Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish اوطهلق (odalık, “chambermaid”), from اوده (oda, “room”).
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Descendants
Further reading
- “odalisque”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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