dénouement
/deˈnuːmɑ̃/US/ˌdeɪ.nuˈmɑnt/
dénouement noun: the conclusion or resolution of a plot; unravelling.
Noun
dénouement (countable and uncountable, plural dénouements)
- The conclusion or resolution of a plot; unravelling.
- Emily was a great favourite with him; and he had always viewed the attachment, at whose dénouement between her and Lorraine, Lady Mandeville meant to preside, as a somewhat foolish romance.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 271
- At last this affair is moving towards the explosive dénouement he has been craving — the revelation, the release of tension, that will shake the universe in one fierce convulsion, and then allow everything to fall back into its rightful place, restored to normality!2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 830
Forms of dénouement
| plural | dénouements |
|---|---|
| alternative form | denouement |
| alternative form (archaic) | dénoûment |
Origin of dénouement
Unadapted borrowing from French dénouement (“resolution”, literally “unknotting”).
Questions about dénouement
- What does dénouement mean?
- Dénouement means the conclusion or resolution of a plot; unravelling.
- What part of speech is dénouement?
- Dénouement is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dénouement?
- Dénouement is pronounced /deˈnuːmɑ̃/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dénouement?
- The plural of dénouement is dénouements.
Words near dénouement in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dénouement (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dénouement.wav.
Cite this entry: “dénouement.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/d%C3%A9nouement. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.