‘Silhouette’ is a
shadow profile, showing an outline of someone or something. Silhouettes became popular
in the eighteenth century in France as a cheap way of creating portraits for
those who could not afford the more lavish paintings. The word ‘silhouette’
derives from Etienne de Silhouette (1709-67), a French politician during the
reign of Louis XV. Silhouette has specific responsibility to strengthen the
country’s finances during The Seven Years’ War (1756-63). He taxed the rich
which made him very unpopular with the wealthier sectors of French society. His
austere reforms gave him a lasting association with all things cheap, with the
term a la silhouette being applied to
them, including the inexpensive portrait cutouts that were all the rage. The
term as stuck ever since and lost its capital ‘S’ as it entered generic
English.[Courtesy of 'It's a Wonderful Word' by Albert Jack]
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