odalisque

English

Odalisque painted by Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1874)

Alternative forms

• odalisk

Etymology

Borrowed from French odalisque, from Ottoman Turkish اوطه‌لق (odalık, “chambermaid”), from اوده (oda, “room”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊd(ə)lɪsk/, /ˈɒd(ə)lɪsk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊdlɪsk/, /oʊdlˈisk/

Noun

odalisque (plural odalisques)

1. (historical) A female slave in a harem, especially one in the Ottoman seraglio.
   • 1947 [1939], Ernst Jünger, translated by Stuart Hood, On the Marble Cliffs, New Directions, translation of Auf den Marmorklippen (in German), →LCCN, →OCLC, page 12:

     When the young Mauretanians were his guests in the little houses before the town gates, and he was of a good humour, it would come about that he displayed his odalisques as others would their jewels.

   • 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72:

     Though I could see the titan odalisques and their garden and knew them to be no more than dream-stuff recalled, I could not escape from their fascination and the memory of the dream.

   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 30, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 296:

     The Sector is borne in a padded Waggon, like some mechanickal Odalisque.

2. A desirable or sexually attractive woman.

Antonyms

• virago

Translations

a female harem slave

• Arabic: جَارِيَّة (ar) f (jāriyya)
• Catalan: odalisca (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 宮女／宫女 (zh) (gōngnǚ)

• Dutch: odalisk (nl)
• French: odalisque (fr) f
• German: Odaliske (de) f
• Greek: οδαλίσκη (el) f (odalíski)
• Hungarian: odaliszk (hu)
• Icelandic: ódalíska
• Italian: odalisca (it) f
• Polish: odaliska (pl)
• Portuguese: odalisca (pt) f
• Russian: одали́ска (ru) f (odalíska)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: одалиска f, џарија f

  Roman: odaliska (sh) f, džarija f

• Spanish: odalisca (es) f
• Turkish: odalık (tr), cariye (tr), halayık (tr)

See also

• sultana

Anagrams

• odaliques

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish اوطه‌لق (odalık, “chambermaid”), from اوده (oda, “room”).

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

odalisque f (plural odalisques)

1. (historical) odalisque

Descendants

• → Catalan: odalisca
• → Dutch: odalisk
• → English: odalisque
• → German: Odaliske
  • → Hungarian: odaliszk
• → Icelandic: ódalíska
• → Italian: odalisca
• → Portuguese: odalisca
• → Russian: одали́ска (odalíska)
• → Serbo-Croatian: одалиска (odaliska)
• → Spanish: odalisca

Further reading

• “odalisque”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.