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- French · borrowed fromdemi-caractère
- English todaydemi-caractère
Borrowed from French demi-caractère.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
demi-caractère
Today it means: Which, in the historical French nomenclature, was halfway between serious (sérieux) and comic (comique); typically, where the protagonists or the plot were not noble enough compared to those derived from mythology or history, but could still convey serious emotions (see for example the 1886 Camille Bellaigue quotation about Bizet's opera Carmen under French demi-caractère) Full definition →
French demi-caractère