brio [brio] n.
1.) Liveliness, vivacity, ‘go’ (O.E.D. 2nd Ed.).
Etymology: Italian, lit. mettle, fire, life; in the musical phrase con brio. From Spanish brio, or Provençal briu, both of Celtic origin.
"The brio of the text (without which, after all, there is no text) is its will to bliss: just where it exceeds demand, transcends prattle, and whereby it attempts to overflow, to break through the constraint of adjectives—which are those doors of language through which the ideological and the imaginary come flowing in" (The Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes, Richard Miller (trans.), 1975).
5 comments:
This would be a handy word if it caught on and became popular.
Yeah, what Debra said. I don't see it making me sound sophisticated, it's just a nice short word that I wish people knew about.
Oh, this is one I use! "Met brio deed hij zijn verhaal."
There we go, I dutched up your site.
Oh, also, we have this expression we (not often, but sometimes) use "met brio en bravoure". That would be "with brio and bravure" in English, I think (not really sure about the "bravure" part).
Don't know if you use it like that too?
I knew this one!
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