tour de force

noun

ˌtu̇r-də-ˈfȯrs 

plural tours de force ˌtu̇r-də-ˈfȯrs 

: a feat or display of strength, skill, or ingenuity

the movie is a comic tour de force

Synonyms

• feat
• deed
• achievement
• performance
• stunt

Examples of tour de force in a Sentence

The book is a tour de force.

Her performance in the play was a real tour de force.

Recent Examples on the Web

Bruford jumped ship and joined King Crimson right before the Close to the Edge tour began, presumably exhausted after laboring through the quintet’s tour de force. —Ernesto Lechner, Rolling Stone, 6 Mar. 2025

That’s less of a reference to the tour de force singer and songwriter’s 2019 live album and documentary concert film of the same name, but more a nod to true-to-life, Lone Star State homecoming traditions. —Amber Elliott, Vogue, 30 June 2025

The best example of the heights such precision can reach may be Gaia’s tour de force determination of the solar system’s acceleration with respect to a vast, sky-encompassing field of quasars. —Lee Billings, Scientific American, 18 June 2025

At first glance, the paper read like a scientific tour de force—an elegant fusion of medicine, mathematics, biochemistry, computational biology, and machine learning. —Siddhartha Mukherjee, New Yorker, 16 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

French

First Known Use

1802, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for tour de force

• counterforce
• intercourse
• nonrecourse
• reinforce
• watercourse
• bourse
• coarse
• course
• gorse
• hoarse
• horse
• norse