belles-lettres
Americanplural noun
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literature regarded as a fine art, especially as having a purely aesthetic function.
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light and elegant literature, especially that which is excessively refined, characterized by aestheticism, and minor in subject, substance, or scope.
noun
Related Words
See literature.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of belles-lettres
1700–10; from French: literally, “fine letters.” See belle, letter 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Crossing the line between belles-lettres and pulp, Petry was a pioneer of the literary thriller, a genre popularised by her contemporary Patricia Highsmith.
From The Guardian • Dec. 14, 2019
“Both anatomy and belles-lettres are of equally noble descent,” Chekhov once wrote to his publisher, adding that they share “identical goals and an identical enemy—the Devil.”
From The New Yorker • May 6, 2019
Dandies, it seems, are dandy; but belles-lettres is better.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 3, 2015
It was not a period when belles-lettres particularly flourished.
From Slate • Mar. 22, 2012
More recently in Carmel there have been a great number of literary men about, but there is not the old flavor, the old dignity of the true belles-lettres.
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
