Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
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WotD: Pièce de résistance
The English language is a mashup of words and phrases borrowed from languages the world over.
Today we’re going to look at a French term – pièce de résistance.
Don’t worry so much about your pronunciation.
At first, it’s more important that you know what it means when someone else says it or you read it somewhere.
This term is most often used in reference to artworks.
It means something is the most outstanding artistic piece or feature of an artist or artwork.
This is why I included a picture of ‘The creation of Adam’ from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
You could argue that this painting is Michelangelo’s pièce de résistance or the most important work of his life.
Perhaps you could argue that the ‘David’ is his pièce de résistance.
I’m not much of an art buff, so as long as you use today’s term when making your argument, I’ll be happy.
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You can use today’s French term in many aspects of daily life.
For example, a traditional Christmas dinner comes with many vegetables, cranberry sauce and desserts, but the pièce de résistance of any Christmas dinner is the turkey.
As long as the bird is fully cooked, nicely browned, and the meat is moist, you’ll have a perfect dinner.
There were five children in my family, which means there were five birthday parties every year.
Naturally, each party included some ‘special’ food such as hamburgers or pizza, but the pièce de résistance was always the cake.
My mother would make them by request; therefore, each child’s cake was unique to their preferences.
That’s all for today.
Go out into the world and impress your friends and family by using pièce de résistance.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 72.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.