Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic)Before the term was coined (the term being a word or phrase used just previously in ananachronisticway)Suffragettes were feministsavant la lettre.(the word "feminist" did not exist during their era)1952,George Sarton,A History of Science:Could the Greeks of that time, whose minds were frustrated and demoralized by defeat and misery, be expected to give a welcome to those premature Quakers and to those Tolstoyans “avant la lettre”?1973, Marlies Kronegger,Literary Impressionism:How is it, then, that Flaubert was a somber impressionistavant la lettre, when the school of painters was remarkably cheerful with the exception of both Degas and Van Gogh?1998, Dominik Declercq,Writing Against the State: Political Rhetorics in Third and Fourth Century China, page341:as St Francis of Assisi was recently discovered to be an ecologistavant la lettre2007, Joan DeJean,The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour, page107:a work with a title that is a marketing dream, pure Julia Child wellavant la lettre: Le Cuisinier français, The French Chef.2010, Stefano Evangelista,The Reception of Oscar Wilde in Europe, page65:One might even advance the case for Wilde's being a celebrityavant la lettre, famous partly for being famous2015February 27, Laura Kipnis, “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe”, inThe Chronicle of Higher Education[1]:You have to feel a little sorry these days for professors married to their former students. They used to be respectable citizens—leaders in their fields, department chairs, maybe even a dean or two—and now they’re abusers of poweravant la lettre.
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