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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

fin de siècle en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /-ˈsjɛkəl/
  • (US) audio
  • /ˌfæn də siˈɛklə/
  • /-ˈsjɛklə/
  • /-siˈɛkəl/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from French fin-de-siècle (literally “end of the century”).

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable) Pertaining to the close of the 19th century, usually suggesting a literary and artistic climate of modernism, world-weariness, and self-indulgence.
    • The fin-de-siècle phenomenon has, of course, received considerable attention from historians in the recent past—a testament to its appeal. […] They also tend to concentrate on individual as well as social alienation as particularly characteristic of the fin-de-siècle feeling. 1990, Mikulas Teich, Roy Porter, Fin de Siècle and Its Legacy, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 3:
  2. (broadly, not-comparable) Pertaining to the close of the 20th (or any other) century.
    • And, Dag, have you ever noticed that your bungalow looks more like it belongs to a pair of Eisenhower era Allentown, Pennsylvania newlyweds than it does to a fin de siècle existentialist poseur? 1991, Douglas Coupland, “Eat Your Parents”, in Generation X, New York: St. Martin's Press, →OCLC, page 85:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
fin-de-siècle alternative lexicographic
fin de siecle alternative lexicographic

Translations (1)

cmn 世紀末 /世纪末 (pertaining to the end of the 19th century)

wikidata: Q265581

fin de siècle en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /-ˈsjɛkəl/
  • (US) audio
  • /ˌfæn də siˈɛklə/
  • /-ˈsjɛklə/
  • /-siˈɛkəl/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from French fin-de-siècle (literally “end of the century”).

Meanings

  1. The closing era of any century; (loosely) the end of any era.
    • From these conversations, most of which took place on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, a picture emerged in which America's closest allies are looking on with a kind of stunned incomprehension, unsure of what will happen, what it means, and what they should do, largely bound together with angst and a shared sense, as one influential adviser told me, that America and the West are approaching something of a fin de siècle. 2020 June 24, Tom McTague, “The Decline of the American World”, in The Atlantic:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
fin-de-siècle alternative lexicographic
fins de siècle Number=Plur lexicographic
fin de siecle alternative lexicographic

Relateds

turn of the century