jeu d'esprit

This consists of a simple gros de laine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventre saint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaise and narrow insertions of pa^te de foie gras backstitched to the mise en sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a singularly piquant and alluring aspect.

The subjoined jeu d'esprit with the preceding heading in magnificent capitals, well interspersed with notes of admiration, was originally published, as matter of fact, in the "New York Sun," a daily newspaper, and therein fully subserved the purpose of creating indigestible aliment for the quidnuncs during the few hours intervening between a couple of the Charleston mails.

"Woody Allen's Cafe Society is a sweet, sad, insubstantial jeu d'esprit, watchable, charming and beautifully shot," wrote Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw, praising Stewart and Eisenberg for "charming and intelligent" performances.

"Brimming with insider references, crammed with made-up literary figures who borrow their idiosyncrasies and mannerisms from various real authors, something of a shadow autobiography of the author and, not least, a showcase for the poetry of the world-famous Ida Perkins, Muse is an amusing jeu d'esprit at first, but the nudge-nudge jokes go on much too long....

At the entrance in Milan, a pre-existing tower has been covered in 24-carat gold-leaf a jeu d'esprit rising above the elegant restraint of the complex below.

This jeu d'esprit reveals a great deal about Keynes's fundamental attitude toward capitalism.

But at heart, it's a jeu d'esprit: a lighthearted, funny chronicle about a man, his cat, and a clutch of decidedly dire correspondents.

But there again Idris' magnificent creation, his jeu d'esprit, was itself a complex achievement.

(Despite his broad sweep, Ellis's decision to give only brief attention to two of Woolf's minor works--the experimental biography Flush, and the theatrical jeu d'esprit Freshwater--is slightly disappointing, given that they are two of the most extended of her dramatizations of the Victorian age.) He analyzes in Mrs.

Occasionally the cultural narrative is interspersed with a little fictive jeu d'esprit: the slave girl clings precariously to Nero's statue; the benefactor reflectively anticipates the games he is about to sponsor.