hors d'oeuvre
Americannoun
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a small bit of appetizing food, as spicy meat, fish, cheese, or a preparation of chopped or creamed foods, often served on crackers or small pieces of toast, for eating at cocktail parties or other gatherings where drinks are served with no other food.
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an appetizer, as a relish or more elaborate preparation, served before or as the first course of a meal.
noun
Etymology
Origin of hors d'oeuvre
1705–15; < French: outside of the main course
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.
On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Come here. I want you to meet my friends. We're all having an hors-d'oeuvre."
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
It is used as a hors-d'oeuvre, to decorate or season.
From Hand-Book of Practical Cookery for Ladies and Professional Cooks by Blot, Pierre
We may like bouillotte, delight in whist, be enraptured with boston, and yet grow tired of them all; but we always come back to ecarte—it is not only a game, it is a hors-d'oeuvre!
From The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas père, Alexandre
Radishes.—The cuts below are turnip-rooted red radishes, cut with a small knife, put in cold water for about an hour, and served with butter, as a hors-d'oeuvre.
From Hand-Book of Practical Cookery for Ladies and Professional Cooks by Blot, Pierre
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.
