Word.ws English Dictionary

nouvelle vague

/nuːˌvɛl ˈvɑːɡ/

nouvelle vague noun: an influential French film movement of the 1950s and 1960s which experimented radically in editing, visual style and narrative.

Noun (1)

nouvelle vague (uncountable)

  1. An influential French film movement of the 1950s and 1960s which experimented radically in editing, visual style and narrative
    • The light of the nouvelle vague—the “new wave” in French cinema that crested in the early sixties—was special.2000, Gilberto Perez, The Material Ghost, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 336
    • Perhaps the great connection between the American film noir and the French nouvelle vague is best thought of in terms of the philosophical implications of life and death as seen in the disruptions and resumed continuity of the French narratives, which never forsake their graceful ritual.2002, Andrew Dickos, Street with No Name, University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 222
    Synonyms:
    New Wave
  2. (broadly) A new movement in art or society.

Noun (2) capitalized: Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague (uncountable)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of nouvelle vague.

Synonyms of nouvelle vague

Forms of nouvelle vague

alternative formNouvelle Vague

Origin of nouvelle vague

Unadapted borrowing from French nouvelle vague (literally “new wave”).

Questions about nouvelle vague

What does nouvelle vague mean?
Nouvelle vague means an influential French film movement of the 1950s and 1960s which experimented radically in editing, visual style and narrative.
What part of speech is nouvelle vague?
Nouvelle vague is a noun.
How do you pronounce nouvelle vague?
Nouvelle vague is pronounced /nuːˌvɛl ˈvɑːɡ/.

Words near nouvelle vague in the dictionary

  1. nouveaux
  2. nouveaux pauvres
  3. nouveaux riches
  4. nouvelle cuisine
  5. nouvelle cuisines
  6. nouvelle vague
  7. Nouvelle-Aquitaine
  8. nouvelles cuisines
  9. Nouvian
  10. Nouvion
  11. nov

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nouvelle vague (page history and authors); Nouvelle Vague (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: “nouvelle vague.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nouvelle_vague. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.