tournure
nounEtymology Borrowed from French tournure, from tourner (“to turn”).
1
Manner, bearing.
- Fortunately, your Parisian tournure will save your vivacity from vulgarity. Though, I must say, not one English girl in a thousand is to be trusted out of the security of insipidity; but you are French enough to be animated without being pert.1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter III, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 25:
- Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess.1879, Henry James, Daisy Miller, London: Harper & Brothers:
2
Turn; contour; figure.
- […] the word serpentine does not express the great line which makes the elegant tournure of a statue; for nature does not permit our head, in its ordinary motions, to turn more than a fourth of the circumference either to the right or to the left.1855, The Artist, volume 1, page 50:
3
Phrasing, turn of phrase.
- Voiture belonged to a race of poets essentially French, who sacrificed to the graces instead of the muses; to whom Cupid, with his wings and arrows, was the ideal of love, and whose art of poetry consisted in epigram, tournure, readiness, and facility.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 246:
4
Fashion, Lifestyle Historical Synonym of bustle: any device used by women to expand the skirt of a dress below the waist.