Word.ws English Dictionary

belle-lettre

belle-lettre is the alternative form of belles-lettres.

Meaning of belles-lettres

Noun

belles-lettres (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) The humanities.
  2. (archaic) Literature, particularly light compositions valued for their aesthetic properties.
    • That vapid, half naturalized term ‘belles-lettres,’ which has had some currency as a substitute for the term ‘literature.’a. 1854, Henry Reed, Lectures on English Literature, 1878 edition, page 34
  3. (archaic) Literary studies, particularly literary aesthetics.

Questions about belle-lettre

What is belle-lettre the alternative form of?
Belle-lettre is the alternative form of belles-lettres.

Words near belle-lettre in the dictionary

  1. Belle Plaine
  2. belle sabreuse
  3. Belle Vue
  4. belle weather
  5. belle époque
  6. belle-lettre
  7. belle-lettrist
  8. belle-lettrists
  9. Belleau
  10. Belleaus
  11. belled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: belle-lettre (page history and authors); belles-lettres (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “belle-lettre.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belle-lettre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.