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prettygoodwordrecherché - adj., uncommon, rare, exquisite, choice; overrefined, precious, pretentious, overblown.
That could probably be separated into four instead of two domains of sense, but this highlights that positive and negative connotations of the word. Pronounced with varying degrees of French accuracy as reh-shair-SHEY or reh-sher-SHEY, because of course it was taken from French -- in this case, sometime around 1720, originally in the positive senses, from the past participle of rechercher, to search for carefully, which if you go far enough back is a cognate of research.
Whether recherché is self-describing, and whether in the positive or negative senses, I leave to you.
---L.
That could probably be separated into four instead of two domains of sense, but this highlights that positive and negative connotations of the word. Pronounced with varying degrees of French accuracy as reh-shair-SHEY or reh-sher-SHEY, because of course it was taken from French -- in this case, sometime around 1720, originally in the positive senses, from the past participle of rechercher, to search for carefully, which if you go far enough back is a cognate of research.
Whether recherché is self-describing, and whether in the positive or negative senses, I leave to you.
---L.
