Word.ws English Dictionary

belles-lettres

/ˌbɛlˈlɛtɹ(ə)/

belles-lettres noun: the humanities.

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.

belles-lettres meaning in Arabic, Indonesian and Vietnamese

belles-lettres in Arabic

light literary compositions valued for their aesthetic properties
أَدَب ʔadab

belles-lettres in Indonesian

light literary compositions valued for their aesthetic properties
susastra

belles-lettres in Vietnamese

light literary compositions valued for their aesthetic properties
văn chương

Synonyms of belles-lettres

Forms of belles-lettres

alternative formbelles lettres
alternative formbelles-letters
alternative formbelle-lettre

Origin of belles-lettres

Borrowed from French belles-lettres (“fine writings”), a parallel construction with the beaux arts (“fine arts”). Littré considered the belles-lettres to embrace grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. Sense embracing all of the humanities under the influence of Latin literae humaniores.

Words formed from belles-lettres

Questions about belles-lettres

What does belles-lettres mean?
Belles-lettres means the humanities.
What is belles-lettres in Arabic?
Belles-lettres in Arabic is أَدَب (ʔadab). See Belles-lettres meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is belles-lettres?
Belles-lettres is a noun.
How do you pronounce belles-lettres?
Belles-lettres is pronounced /ˌbɛlˈlɛtɹ(ə)/.

Words near belles-lettres in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-belles-lettres.wav.

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