tour de force

[ toor duh fawrs, -fohrs; French toor duh fawrs ]

noun

, plural tours de force [t, oo, rz d, uh, , fawrs, -, fohrs, too, r, d, uh, , fawrs].

1. an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; stroke of genius:

   Herman Melville's Moby Dick was a tour de force.

2. a particularly adroit maneuver or technique in handling a difficult situation:

   The way the president got his bill through the Senate was a tour de force.

3. a feat requiring unusual strength, skill, or ingenuity.

tour de force

/ ˈtʊə də ˈfɔːs; tur də fɔrs /

noun

1. a masterly or brilliant stroke, creation, effect, or accomplishment

tour de force

1. A feat accomplished through great skill and ability: “The speech was a tour de force; it swept the audience off its feet.”

Word History and Origins

Origin of tour de force¹

1795–1805; < French: feat of strength or skill

Word History and Origins

Origin of tour de force¹

literally: feat of skill or strength

Example Sentences

In her aching memoir, she embarks on a tour de force examination of her childhood, marked first by her mother’s abandoning her when she was a toddler and later by the death of her beloved father.

From Time

Through the late 1960s, Capote claimed to be writing his masterpiece, his tour de force based on his swans, but several deadlines passed for it.

From Washington Blade

At 35, Hawa Hassan is already a tour de force when it comes to Somali food in America.

From Ozy

Understated yet opulent, measured, and intensely creepy, it’s a tour de force in balancing uncomfortable levels of tension and suspense with deep pathos.

From Vox

Page’s tour de force performance in Hard Candy led, two years later, to Juno, a low-budget indie film that brought Page Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and sudden megafame.

From Time

His family memoir, Sweet and Low, is a tour de force of reporting and memory—tender, curious, and exceptionally funny.

From The Daily Beast

It is a tour de force of reporting: 13,000 words on a two-week deadline.

From The Daily Beast

It's also a masterpiece of choreographed c--tery—Joffrey's final tour de force.

From The Daily Beast

And, of course, she's best known for her ball-busting tour de force as Ed Helms's wife in The Hangover.

From The Daily Beast

As a result, his version is a technical tour de force but a movie that never gets under your skin.

From The Daily Beast

As a tour de force in the gentle art of lying, the snake-story is justly esteemed.

From Project Gutenberg

As a tour de force of geometrical imagination it would be difficult to parallel this hypothesis.

From Project Gutenberg

The physical tour de force, was one of those feats of agility in which Neb had been my instructor, ten years before.

From Project Gutenberg

If the Mastersingers was a little less successful as a work of art we should still have to regard it as an amazing tour de force.

From Project Gutenberg

The music for such incidents cannot be of the highest beauty; here we have one of the cases of a tour de force.

From Project Gutenberg