tableau — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A striking and vivid representation or scene; a picture.

   Examples

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   Stefania Chlouveraki, the project leader, stands at a long sorting table. She turns the colored fragments over and over in her fingertips. She fits each one into its place: a magnificent tableau of lions, crosses, pomegranate trees.

2. A vivid graphic scene of a group of people or objects arranged as in a painting or bas relief sculpture.

   Synonyms

   tableau vivant

   Examples

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   Folding chairs had been placed at prudent distances, and masks were dutifully worn. An Australian Labradoodle belonging to the home’s owners strutted among the guests. Despite the breezy suburban tableau, the occasion was fraught.

3. An arrangement of actors in static positions on stage, having the effect of pointing up a particular moment in the drama, conventionally revealed by opening tableau curtains (known as "tabs").

   Usage

   • UK usage
   • broadly
   • Dated

4. A two-dimensional array or table of data, usually numbers, of various specific kinds.

   Examples

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   For the tableau shown, there are three distinct procedures (one for each standard Young tableau of shape (2,1,1) with entries 1, 2, 3, and 4) for obtaining a Young tableau.

5. A table that shows constraint violations of a list of candidates given an input and a constraint ranking.

6. Mostly in solitaire card games, but also in other card and board games, the main area, where random cards can be arranged.

7. A semantic tableau.

8. A unit of a play, an opera, or a ballet with change of stage setting.

   Examples

   […] several scenes from the first act were consolidated into one tableau […]

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   As creative as it might have been, it appeared disjointed, with the sense of many things happening simultaneously, and the promenading performances jumping from one idea to the next – from a cancan to a gothic tableau featuring mock-beheaded women at the windows of the Conciergerie with red streamers that looked like macabre spurting blood.

Noun

1. a group of people attractively arranged (as if in a painting)

   Synonyms

   tableau vivant

   Broader terms

   arrangement

2. any dramatic scene

   Broader terms

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