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"Hors d'oeuvre"

"Hors d'oeuvre"
- cuisine / etymology -

​​The term "hors d'oeuvre" (a smaller food item usually served before the main meal) is comprised of three French words: "hors" ("outside" -- from Latin "foris" and a cognate of "foreign"), "de" ("of" or "from"), and "oeuvre" ("work" -- from Latin "opera" and cognate of "opus").

An hors d'oeuvre is literally something "outside of the work", and figuratively something prepared separately from the official courses of a meal.

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Sources ▼

http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=hors+d%27oeuvre