outré

See also: outre

English

WOTD – 19 August 2011

Alternative forms

• outre
• outrée (in reference to women)

Etymology

French outré, form of outrer (“to go to excess”); see also outre (“beyond”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /uˈtɹeɪ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

Adjective

outré (comparative more outré, superlative most outré)

1. Beyond what is customary or proper; extravagant.
   • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter VIII, in Emma: […], volume II, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 152:

     I believe I have been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a way—so very odd a way—that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw any thing so outrée!—Those curls!—This must be a fancy of her own. I see nobody else looking like her!

   • 1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 50, in The Way of All Flesh:

     He hated people who did not know where to stop. Ernest was always so outré and strange; there was never any knowing what he would do next, except that it would be something unusual and silly.

   • 2021 July 17, Jacob Bernstein, “Keith McNally Stirs the Pot”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Are his patrons simply too giddy in this post-pandemic moment to muster sustained outrage over his outré behavior?

2. Very unconventional.
   • 1992, David Littlejohn, The Ultimate Art: Essays Around and About Opera, Chapter 16: The Twentieth Century Takes on Shakespeare, page 261,

     To begin with, King Lear is the most unconventional, the most nearly hysterical, the most outré and outrageous play Shakespeare ever wrote.

Synonyms

• (unconventional): bizarre, eccentric, outlandish

Translations

very unconventional

• Bulgarian: ексцентричен (bg) (ekscentričen)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 偏离常规的, 荒诞的

• Dutch: extravagant (nl), excentriek (nl)
• Finnish: omintakeinen (fi), omituinen (fi), poikkeuksellinen (fi), outo (fi), äärimmäinen (fi)
• German: extravagant (de), exzentrisch (de)
• Russian: стра́нный (ru) (stránnyj), необы́чный (ru) (neobýčnyj), эксцентричный (ru) (ekscentričnyj), шокирующий (ru) (šokirujuščij)
• Spanish: extravagante (es)

Anagrams

• utero-, outer, ruote, Toure, route, rouet, Route

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /u.tʁe/

Adjective

outré (feminine outrée, masculine plural outrés, feminine plural outrées)

1. excessive
2. outrageous
3. outraged

Participle

outré (feminine outrée, masculine plural outrés, feminine plural outrées)

1. past participle of outrer

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• route, routé, troue, troué