à contrecœur

See also: à contre-cœur, à contrecoeur, and à contre-coeur

WOTD – 9 January 2017

Etymology

Borrowed from French à contrecœur, à contre-cœur, from Old French avoir a contrecuer, avoir contrecœur (“to dislike”), from à (“for, with”) + contre-cœur (“aversion, dislike”) (contre (“against”) + cœur (“heart”)); compare Old French estre contre coer a (“to be adverse to”).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌæ ˌkɒn.tɹəˈkɜː/, /-ˌkɒ̃-/, /-ˈkəː/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˌɑ ˌkɑn.tɹəˈkɚ/
Hyphenation: à con‧tre‧cœur

Adverb

à contrecœur (not comparable)

Reluctantly, unwillingly, with disgust.
- 1882 May 14, Vincent van Gogh, “Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh”, in Masters of Art – Vincent van Gogh‎, Hastings, East Sussex: Delphi Classics, published 2014:
  Xtien was young at the time and had met him after her father's death, didn't know then what she knows now, and when the man died there she was alone with her child – forsaken, without a penny. À contrecœur went on the streets, became ill, was taken to hospital, in all sorts of trouble …
- 1988, Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics, Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 319:
  Œdipe is another matter: he can't simply be ejected from the plot. So Dircé in the end has to take back everything she had said earlier about Œdipe's tyrannical behaviour and claims that she had said it à contrecœur anyway.
- 2004 June 26, Daniel Hannan, “The way ahead for Europe”, in The Spectator‎, archived from the original on 19 May 2006:
  This is not to say, of course, that countries would be prevented from adopting common initiatives in these areas. But no longer would sceptical states be dragged à contrecœur into policies that their people disliked. The more federally minded governments would be free to use EU structures and institutions to amalgamate to their hearts’ content, with no pressure on the more reluctant nations to join them.
- 2006, “The Nobel Prize”, in Fathoms from Anywhere – A Samuel Beckett Centenary Exhibition, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin‎, archived from the original on 20 December 2015:
  Following the award of the Nobel Prize, [Samuel] Beckett was pressured to make a new work available for publication. Finally, and almost à contrecoeur, he turned over to Les Editions de Minuit a story—"Premier Amour"—which he had written in 1946 but had withheld from publication.

Alternative forms

à contre-cœur (traditional)

Etymology

See à, contre, and cœur for the etymologies of the individual words. The adverbial phrase derives from the phrase qui va contre le cœur, meaning “which goes against the heart”, where heart is used figuratively to mean “one’s preferences”.