tête-à-tête means in private, between two people; head-to-head. It carries an Arena rating of 1842, earned across 57 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, tête-à-tête ranks #713 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #940 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,115 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,317 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
tête-à-tête is pronounced /ˌtɛt.əˈtɛt/.
Why “tête-à-tête” is a great word
TÊTE-À-TÊTE — [Adverb, Noun] A private conversation between two people, or the S-shaped sofa designed to facilitate it; as an adverb, to speak in such a manner. Unadapted borrowing from French tête-à-tête, literally 'head-to-head.' Unlike a 'conference'—formal, multitudinous, and agenda-driven—or a 'chat'—casual, open to the air, and weightless—a tête-à-tête is a deliberate, hushed enclosure built for two. It is the conspiratorial lean over a café table as dusk falls, the murmured exchange in a quiet corner while a party hums beyond, and the specific geometry of an antique settee that turns two bodies toward one another and away from the world—a temporary architecture where confidences are measured in breaths, not words, and two realities can, for a moment, perfectly align.
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French tête-à-tête (“head-to-head”).
adv
- In private, between two people; head-to-head.
noun
- A face-to-face meeting, or private conversation between two people, usually in an intimate setting; a head-to-head.
- A bench or sofa that allows two people to talk face-to-face, especially one that is S-shaped.
- A variety of early flowering, fragrant daffodil.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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