Mystique Meaning
/mɪˈstiːk/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn aura of heightened interest, meaning or mystery surrounding a person or thing.
Sentence Examples
The location of the remaining Wollemi Pines is shrouded in mystique.
The show has lost a lot of its mystique over seven seasons.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The famous French artist had an air of ____ that attracted many enthusiastic fans.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old mansion had a certain ____ that attracted many curious tourists who wanted to explore its dark corridors and several secret rooms.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree French mystiquebor. English mystique Borrowed from French mystique (“a mystic”), from Latin mysticus. See also the doublet mystic.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"THE LONDON BRIGHTON & SOUTH COAST RAILWAY. By C. Hamilton Ellis. Ian Allan. 30s. [...] In an opening chapter entitled "Portrait", he ends by asking whether there was a mystique about the L.B. & S.C."
— 1960 December, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 776:
"The mystique spelled out a choice—love, home, children, or other goals and purposes in life. […] The baby boom of the immediate postwar years took place in every country. But it was not permeated, in most other countries, with the mystique of feminine fulfillment."
— 1963, Betty Friedan, “The Mistaken Choice”, in The Feminine Mystique:
"Through male bonding, the subculture of the hunt caught up in the mystique of the chase, the hunting party became a military force, and men discovered that they need not stop at defense: they could go out to hunt for other people's wealth."
— 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 134:
"Rediker looks not at that bigger picture but at the slave ship itself, as a microeconomy where the captain was chief executive, jailer, accountant, paymaster and disciplinarian, exercising these roles by maintaining, from his spacious captain’s cabin in a very unspacious ship, the mystique of what later military leaders would call command isolation."
— 2007 October 21, Adam Hochschild, “Voyage of the Damned”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2017:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The famous French artist had an air of ____ that attracted many enthusiastic fans.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The old mansion had a certain ____ that attracted many curious tourists who wanted to explore its dark corridors and several secret rooms.