tableau vivant
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tableau vivant
Literally, “living picture”
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 guests, several of whom described the gathering for this article, played tableau vivant, an old-timey version of charades, in which participants enact famous paintings.
From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2022
After all, close scrutiny of a painting or a sculpture is not the aim of a tableau vivant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2021
This tableau vivant of corseted dancers encased in seventeenth-century hoopskirts resembles a painting by Velázquez inflected with contemporary haute-couture decadence.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 15, 2019
The vision God bless us every one, a Tudorbethan tableau vivant of bronzed meats, spice and familial merriment.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 23, 2018
Through his brain danced a tableau vivant of the scene in the wood.
From The Revellers by Tracy, Louis
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.
