different between literature vs bagatelle

English

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Alternative forms

• literatuer (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English literature, from Old French littérature, from Latin literatura or litteratura, from littera (“letter”), from Etruscan, from Ancient Greek ??????? (diphthér?, “tablet”). Displaced native Old English b?ccræft.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?l?.t?.??.t??(?)/, /?l?.t??.t??(?)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?l?.t?.?.t??/, /?l?.t?.?.t??/, /?l?.t???.t??/, /?l?.t?.t??/
• (Midwestern US) IPA^(key): /?l?.t?.t??/

Noun

literature (usually uncountable, plural literatures)

1. The body of all written works.
2. The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
3. (usually preceded by the) All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.

   • The obvious question to ask at this point is: ‘Why posit the existence of a set of Thematic Relations (THEME, AGENT, INSTRUMENT, etc.) distinct from constituent structure relations?? The answer given in the relevant literature is that a variety of linguistic phenomena can be accounted for in a more principled way in terms of Thematic Functions than in terms of constituent structure relations.
4. Written fiction of a high standard.

   However, even “literary” science fiction rarely qualifies as literature, because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories. —Adam Cadre, 2008

Derived terms

Meronyms

• See also Thesaurus:literature

Related terms

• letter
• literal
• literacy
• literate
• literary

Translations

Further reading

• "literature" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 183.

Anagrams

• literateur, literatuer

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French bagatelle, from Italian bagattella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bæ???t?l/

Noun

bagatelle (plural bagatelles)

1. A trifle; an insubstantial thing.
   • 1782, Charles Macklin, Love a-la-Mode 21:,

     Sir C.?Oh! dear madam, don't ask me, it's a very foolish song—a mere bagatelle.
     Char.?Oh! Sir Callaghan, I will admit of no excuse.

   • 1850, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (volume 68, page 226)

     […] the jails were larger and fuller, the number of murders was incomparably greater, the thefts and swindlings in the old country were a bagatelle to the large depredations there […]

   • 1879 September 6, "Railway Projects", Railway World, 5 (36): 853

     The repayment of the cost of the western part of the road, whatever it might be, would be a mere bagatelle, for the older provinces would have been enriched by the stimulus given to business by the opening up of the plains, […]

   Synonyms: bag of shells; see also Thesaurus:trifle

2. A short piece of literature or of instrumental music, typically light or playful in character.
   • 2007, Norman Lebrecht, The Life And Death of Classical Music, page 7

     One afternoon in 1920. a young pianist sat down in a shuttered room in the capital of defeated Germany and played a Bagatelle by Beethoven.

3. A game similar to billiards played on an oblong table with pockets or arches at one end only.
   • 1895, Hugh Legge, "The Repton Club", in John Matthew Knapp (ed.), The Universities and the Social Problem, page 139

     For some time they did nothing save box, but at last they went down to the bagatelle room, and played bagatelle for a bit. They marked this advance in civilization by prodding holes in the ceiling with the bagatelle cues, which gave the ceiling the appearance of a cloth target after a Gatling gun had been shooting at it.

4. Any of several smaller, wooden table top games developed from the original bagatelle in which the pockets are made of pins; also called pin bagatelle, hit-a-pin bagatelle, jaw ball.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• carom
• pachinko
• pinball

Verb

bagatelle (third-person singular simple present bagatelles, present participle bagatelling, simple past and past participle bagatelled)

1. (intransitive, rare) To meander or move around, in a manner similar to the ball in the game of bagatelle.
2. (transitive, rare) To bagatellize; to regard as a bagatelle.

Further reading

• bagatelle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• bagatelle in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• bagatelle at OneLook Dictionary Search

French

Etymology

From Italian bagattella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.?a.t?l/

Noun

bagatelle f (plural bagatelles)

1. bagatelle, trinket, bauble
2. (food) trifle

Descendants

• ? Danish: bagatel
• ? Dutch: bagatel
• ? English: bagatelle
• ? German: Bagatelle

Further reading

• “bagatelle” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

bagatelle f

1. plural of bagatella