donnée
Americannoun
noun
-
a subject or theme
-
a basic assumption or fact
Etymology
Origin of donnée
1875–80; < French: literally, given, noun use of feminine past participle of donner to give < Latin dōnāre; see donate
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.
And with that donnée, as Henry James would have called it, the excitement begins.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 6, 2016
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, what the French call his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 19, 2014
I think it’s the most daring donnée a novel has ever taken on, which is to make a novel that’s exciting about boredom.
From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2011
The donnée is one of the great old simple cross-purposes of Fate—not a mere "conflict," as the silly modern jargon has it.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by George Saintsbury
The donnée of these tales, their spirit, their postulates, are nakedly romantic.
From Adventures in Criticism by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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.
