Dictionary

à la carte en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌæ.ləˈkɑːt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌɑ.lɑˈkɑɹt/ (General-American)
• /ˌɑ.ləˈkɑɹt/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌæ.læˈkɑːt/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French à la carte (“on the menu; according to the card”).

Meanings

1. (not-comparable, qualifier:food and drink) Allowing selection from a fixed list of individually priced options shown on the menu.
   • The restaurant had a huge à la carte menu and four specials that day.
2. (broadly, figuratively, not-comparable) Selective; only choosing what one likes or desires.
   • As twin studies proliferated throughout the nineteen-eighties, their results contributed to substantial changes in our moral intuitions. When schizophrenia and autism, for example, turned out to be largely heritable, we no longer blamed these disorders on cold or inept mothers. But, for such freighted traits as intelligence, liberals remained understandably anxious and continued to insist that differences—not just on a group level but on an individual one—were merely artifacts of an unequal environment. Conservatives pointed out that an à-la-carte approach to scientific findings was intellectually incoherent. 2021 September 6, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?”, in The New Yorker:
3. (Philippines, not-comparable, qualifier:particularly in restaurants) A meal but only the viand (without rice).

Forms

Antonyms

table d'hôte

Synonyms

cherry-picking

Translations (9)

tr alakart (allowing selection from a menu) · id à la carte (allowing selection from a menu) · hu étlap szerint (allowing selection from a menu) · pt à la carte (allowing selection from a menu) · nb a la carte (allowing selection from a menu) · ko 아라카르트 (allowing selection from a menu) · nb à la carte (allowing selection from a menu) · pl à la carte (allowing selection from a menu) · fi à la carte (allowing selection from a menu)

à la carte en · ADV

Pronunciation

• /ˌæ.ləˈkɑːt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌɑ.lɑˈkɑɹt/ (General-American)
• /ˌɑ.ləˈkɑɹt/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌæ.læˈkɑːt/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French à la carte (“on the menu; according to the card”).

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) By ordering individually priced items from the menu.
   • There were two divisions in the restaurants I used to visit. One division, which was patronized by fairly well-to-do people, provided any number of courses from which one chose and paid for à la carte, each dinner thus costing from one to two shillings. The other division provided six-penny dinners of three courses with a slice of bread. In my days of strict frugality I usually dined in the second division. 1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part I, chapter xvii
   • DCI Tom Barnaby: You don't do eye of newt or toe of frog, wool of bat or tongue of dog, then? Waitress: Not à la carte, sir. 1998 May 6, Douglas Watkinson et al., “Death in Disguise”, in Midsomer Murders:

Forms

Antonyms

table d'hôte

Translations (13)

sv à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · es a la carta (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · pt à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · da a la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · nb à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · yue 散嗌 (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · fr à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · da à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · nb a la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · cmn 單點 /单点 (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · de à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · nl à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu) · pl à la carte (by ordering individually priced items from the menu)