hors concours
Americanadjective
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noting an artist, architect, or the like, not competing or not qualified to compete for the prizes in an exhibit or competition.
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noting or pertaining to a work or project submitted by such a person to an exhibit or competition.
adjective
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(of an artist, exhibitor, etc) excluded from competing
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without equal; unrivalled
Etymology
Origin of hors concours
Literally, “out (of the) competition”
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.
The result was actually the top 13, since No. 1 was declared hors concours and there were two ties.
From Time Magazine Archive
A few artists, such as Picasso and De Kooning, were by their own request hors concours.
From Time Magazine Archive
It seems to me that putting Shakespere aside as hors concours, not merely in degree but in kind, only two English poets can challenge Spenser for the primacy.
From A History of Elizabethan Literature by George Saintsbury
Humility had nothing to do with it—as little even as envy would have had; I was below humility, just as we were together outside of competition, mutually "hors concours."
From A Small Boy and Others by Henry James
Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1879; gold medal, 1889; hors concours.
From Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. by Clara Erskine Clement Waters
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.
