Word.ws English Dictionary

lapalissade

/ləˌpælɪˈsɑːd/

lapalissade noun: an obvious, self-evident truth, especially humorously so; a tautology or truism.

Noun (1)

lapalissade (plural lapalissades)

  1. An obvious, self-evident truth, especially humorously so; a tautology or truism.
    • In a certain way our theory is so obvious that it appears to us as a “lapalissade”. The cell is a network of phospholipid membranes and one of their chief functions is to keep certain substrates and enzymes apart.1961, Robert John Cecil Harris, The Initial Effects of Ionizing Radiations on Cells: A Symposium Held in Moscow, October, 1960, Supported by UNESCO and the IAEA and Sponsored by the Academy of...
    • Despite their affection for Gavarni, they dismissed as a lapalissade his oft-repeated statement that science had killed the notion of God1990, Malcolm Scott, The Struggle for the Soul of the French Novel: French Catholic and Realist Novelists, 1850–1970, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press

Noun (2) capitalized: Lapalissade

Lapalissade (plural Lapalissades)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of lapalissade.

Forms of lapalissade

plurallapalissades
alternative formLapalissade
pluralLapalissades

Origin of lapalissade

From French lapalissade, equivalent to Jacques de la Palice (a French nobleman and military officer) + -ade; see Lapalissian for more.

Words that rhyme with lapalissade

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lapalissade

What does lapalissade mean?
Lapalissade means an obvious, self-evident truth, especially humorously so; a tautology or truism.
What part of speech is lapalissade?
Lapalissade is a noun.
How do you pronounce lapalissade?
Lapalissade is pronounced /ləˌpælɪˈsɑːd/.
What is the plural of lapalissade?
The plural of lapalissade is lapalissades.

Words near lapalissade in the dictionary

  1. Lapage
  2. Lapaglia
  3. Lapaglias
  4. Lapal
  5. lapalapa
  6. lapalissade
  7. lapalissades
  8. Lapalisse
  9. lapalissian
  10. lapalissianly
  11. LAPAN

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lapalissade (page history and authors); Lapalissade (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: “lapalissade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lapalissade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.