Indonesian weightlifter Deni competing in the 2018 Asian Games
9 November 2026
Tour de force is, of course, a French phrase literally meaning feat of strength. It starts appearing in English use in the closing years of the eighteenth century.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation from the 17 December 1787 issue of London’s Public Advertiser that appears to be a reference to a stage show that uses the phrase quite literally:
The surprising Auguste has brought over some new Tours de Force, à droit & à Gauche [feats of strength, on the right and on the left], he seems more to flutter, than to tread upon the stage.
And we see it used figuratively in an 18 February 1802 letter by Lord Elgin, he of Parthenon Marbles fame:
It has been good humoredly represented to the Turkish Government that your communication at Vienna of the Porte’s disavowal of the absurd Separate Treaty between France & Turkey had been made with a view to exult over what is styled a tour de force of the British Influence here.
Sources:
Lord Elgin (Thomas Bruce). Letter to Arthur Paget, 18 February 1802. In Augustus Paget, ed. The Paget Papers, vol. 2 of 2. London: William Heinemann, 1896, 41. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, September 2026, tour de force, n.
Image credit: Amir Hoseini, 2018. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.