Word.ws English Dictionary

belles-letters

belles-letters 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 belles-letters

What is belles-letters the alternative form of?
Belles-letters is the alternative form of belles-lettres.

Words near belles-letters in the dictionary

  1. belles dames sans merci
  2. belles laides
  3. belles lettres
  4. belles of the ball
  5. belles sabreuses
  6. belles-letters
  7. belles-lettres
  8. belles-lettristic
  9. belleter
  10. belleters
  11. belletrism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: belles-letters (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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