Pronounced: try-BOL-uh-jee (alt: trih-BOL-uh-jee), noun
Notes: Not the study of tribbles, nor even of tribes
Yesterday’s phrase
The phrase beau geste is
- a graceful or magnanimous gesture
- an ingratiating conciliatory gesture
First usage
Our phrase came into English in the early 1900s
Background / Comments
I knew there was a book called Beau Geste, and I knew the general plot, but I didn’t know that it was written by Percival Christopher Wren and published in 1924 — our phrase was in use before the book came out. There were several films made of the story; I think I may have seen one of them. This publicity helped make the phrase popular. It came from French; the phrase literally means “beautiful gesture”.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 