vraisemblance

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French vraisemblance.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vɹeɪsɑmˈblɑns/

Noun

vraisemblance (uncountable)

1. (literary theory) verisimilitude
   • 2002, Jonathan D. Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature:

     Recognition of this first level of vraisemblance need not depend on the claim that reality is a convention produced by language.

   • 2017, Karin Kukkonen, A Prehistory of Cognitive Poetics: Neoclassicism and the Novel‎^[1], page 6:

     The notion of vraisemblance, “in whose name all the literary battles were fought, is at the root of all criticism” (Bray 1931, 192; c'est en son nom que se livrent toutes les batailles littéraires, elle est à la base de toutes les critiques). Derived from Aristotle's "probable," in the rediscovery of the Poetics in Renaissance Italy, vraisemblance takes the key hierarchical position in seventeenth-century neoclassicism and maintains it until well into the eighteenth century.

Further reading

• vraisemblance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vʁɛ.sɑ̃.blɑ̃s/, /vʁe.sɑ̃.blɑ̃s/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s

Noun

vraisemblance f (plural vraisemblances)

1. verisimilitude
2. likelihood

Antonyms

• invraisemblance

Derived terms

• selon toute vraisemblance

Further reading

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