A.Word.A.Day --auteur

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auteur

PRONUNCIATION:

(O-tuhr)

MEANING:

noun: A filmmaker, such as a director, who has a distinct personal style and is involved in all aspects of movie-making, giving a film the unique imprint of the filmmaker.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French auteur (originator or author), from Latin auctor (originator), from augere (to originate, to increase). Some other words derived from the same root are auction, author, and inaugurate, and augment.

USAGE:

"Ang Lee, a Taiwanese director who'd been working as a kind of auteur-for-hire on the US indie circuit for several years suddenly found himself poised to become the next Kurosawa, but -- sad to say -- he blew it off to 'go Hollywood' and make the most regressive career move possible, a comic-book flick."
Giovanni Fazio; Heros at Large; The Japan Times (Tokyo); Aug 13, 2003.

"If we can discern anything from interviews with auteur Mel Gibson, however, The Passion looms as possibly one of the most presumptuous, intelligence-insulting biblical adaptations since The Ten Commandments, a film that managed to depict the exodus of the Jews without ever once referring to them as 'Jews'."
Lynn Coady; The Dolorous Passion of Mad Max; Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Aug 19, 2003.

See more usage examples of auteur in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. -Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885)

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