pastiche

See also: pastiché

English

WOTD – 6 September 2009

Etymology

Via French pastiche, from Italian pasticcio (“pie, something blended”), from Vulgar Latin *pastīcius, from Late Latin pasta (“dough, pastry cake, paste”), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “barley porridge”), from παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt”). Doublet of pasticcio.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pæsˈtiːʃ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːʃ

Noun

pastiche (countable and uncountable, plural pastiches)

Botticelli's original on the left, pastiche on the right. (1)

1. A work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist, usually in a positive or neutral way.

   Coordinate term: parody

   • 2009, Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism:

     He argued that the failure of the future was constitutive of a postmodern cultural scene which, as he correctly prophesied, would become dominated by pastiche and revivalism.

2. A musical medley, typically quoting other works.
3. An incongruous mixture; a hodgepodge.

   This supposed research paper is a pastiche of passages from unrelated sources.

   The house failed to attract a buyer because the decor was a pastiche of Bohemian and Scandinavian styles.

4. (uncountable) A postmodern playwriting technique that fuses a variety of styles, genres, and story lines to create a new form.

Translations

work that imitates the work of a previous artist

• Catalan: pastitx (ca)
• Czech: pastiš (cs) m or f
• Danish: pastiche (da) c
• Dutch: pastiche (nl) m
• Esperanto: pastiĉo
• Finnish: pastissi (fi)
• French: pastiche (fr) m
• German: Pastiche (de) m
• Japanese: パスティーシュ (pasutīshu)
• Korean: 파스티슈 (paseutisyu)
• Norwegian: pastisj m
• Polish: pastisz (pl) m
• Portuguese: pastiche (pt) m, pasticho m
• Romanian: pastișă (ro) f
• Russian: стилиза́ция (ru) f (stilizácija), пасти́ш (ru) m (pastíš), имита́ция (ru) f (imitácija)
• Spanish: pastiche (es) m
• Swedish: pastisch (sv) c
• Turkish: pastiş (tr)

musical medley

• Danish: potpourri n
• Esperanto: pastiĉo
• French: pastiche (fr) m
• German: Potpourri (de) n
• Portuguese: pot-pourri (pt) m
• Russian: попурри́ (ru) n (popurrí)

incongruous mixture; a hodgepodge

• Catalan: pastitx (ca) m
• Dutch: mengelmoes (nl)
• Esperanto: mikspoto
• Russian: мешани́на (ru) f (mešanína), смесь (ru) f (smesʹ)

postmodern playwriting technique that fuses a variety of styles

See also

• cento
• collage

Verb

pastiche (third-person singular simple present pastiches, present participle pastiching, simple past and past participle pastiched)

1. To create or compose in a mixture of styles.
   • 2008 May 13, Natalie Angier, “A Gene Map for the Cute Side of the Family”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     That the genetic code of the platypus proved to be as bizarrely pastiched as its anatomy enhanced the popular appeal of the report, published in the journal Nature.

Anagrams

• capeshit, hepatics, pistache, scaphite

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian pasticcio (“pie, something blended”), from Vulgar Latin *pastīcius, from Late Latin pasta, from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “barley porridge”), from παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt”). Doublet of pastis, which was borrowed through Occitan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pas.tiʃ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: pastichent, pastiches

Noun

pastiche m (plural pastiches)

1. pastiche

Verb

pastiche

1. inflection of pasticher:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Descendants

• → Catalan: pastitx
• → English: pastiche

References

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

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• pasticho

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /pasˈt͡ʃi.ʃi/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /pasˈt͡ʃi.ʃi/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /paʃˈt͡ʃi.ʃi/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /pasˈt͡ʃi.ʃe/

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /pɐʃˈti.ʃɨ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /pɐʃˈti.ʃɨ/
  • (Northern Portugal) IPA^(key): /pɐʃˈti.t͡ʃɨ/

• Hyphenation: pas‧ti‧che

Noun

pastiche m (plural pastiches)

1. pastiche (work that imitates the work of a previous artist)

Spanish

Noun

pastiche m (plural pastiches)

1. pastiche (work that imitates the work of a previous artist)

Further reading

• “pastiche”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28