Word of the Day for Thursday, July 21, 2011
detente \dey-TAHNT\, noun:
A relaxing of tension, especially between nations.
The B.O. has found that there will be no detente between the Tea Party and the Progressives!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog
But he'd just smiled - almost sadly, it seemed to her - just smiled and said that détente was a balancing act, that he was the only one who knew how to walk that line.-- David J. Williams, The Burning Skies
But these were unspoken claims, and a firm détente developed between Han Jung-joo and her husband as a matter of course.-- Sonya Chung, Long for this world: a novel
Detente borrows from the French word that means "a loosening," related to an Old French word for the catch of a crossbow.
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