Word of the Day
encore
Encore
French
“Encore — the cry that demands the performer return for more — is the French word for 'again' or 'still,' and what began as a British theatrical custom misapplied to a French word is now the universal signal that an audience refuses to let the performance end.”
Encore is the French word for 'again,' 'still,' or 'yet' — from Latin hanc horam (this hour, at this time), which compressed through Old French into encore, meaning 'at this moment still' or 'even now.' The word exists in French as an ordinary adverb: encore du pain means 'more bread'; vous dormez encore means 'you're still sleeping.' It is not a theatrical term in French and was never used in French theaters as a shout to recall a performer — the French used the word bis (Latin for 'twice') for that purpose. Yet British audiences in the eighteenth century, having encountered French theater and misread, or perhaps deliberately adopted, the French adverb as a theatrical interjection, began shouting encore to demand repetition of a song or a piece. The word's French origins gave it an air of Continental sophistication; its meaning of 'again' or 'still' made it semantically apt even if the adoption was historically confused.
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