tableau vivant
Americannoun
plural
tableaux vivantsnoun
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
They wore their official robes, occupied their ivory chairs, and being carefully got up with venerable white beards, they had all the imposing effect of a tableau vivant upon the Gauls who entered the Forum.
From The Comic History of Rome by Becket, Gilbert Abbott ?
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.
