Each week The Old Editor will attempt to address your entreaties for information and advice on grammar and usage, writing, writer-editor etiquette, and related subjects.
The Old Editor does not address marital and relationship matters, dietary questions, or automobile mechanics.
This week's question: While reading The Good Guy by Dean Koontz, our supplicant came across the line "The LockAid, however, not only facilitated Krait's work but also granted him entrée everywhere, a right and a power no less complete than that of any ancient king, before the advent of parliaments, when no door in the kingdom could be barred to His Majesty." This led to her question.
"Entrée gave me pause because I have never seen it used to mean anything other than 'main course.' A quick Merriam-Webster search showed me that entrée in the sense of 'entry' has its roots in Old French language. For English-language learners, as distinguished by Merriam-Webster, entrée formally means 'the act or manner of entering something' or 'the right to enter something.' "
The Old Editor answers: Entrée does indeed come from the French and does indeed mean entry, but like many words that have kicked around for a while, it has accumulated additional senses, not all of them obvious.
Entrée as the main course of a meal, for example, is a North American sense that developed around 1900. The original sense of a course of a meal developed in the eighteenth century, when the entrée a dish served between two courses at a formal dinner, a "made dish" served after the fish course and before the arrival of the joint—whatever chunk of meat was to constitute the main course. (A "made dish" is one the combines several ingredients, as distinguished from that chunk of meat.)
The sense in Mr. Koontz's novel does mean "entry," but a particular kind. "The right to enter" is a standard definition of that sense, but a more precise one for this context is "the privilege to enter." The Oxford English Dictionary says that an early manifestation of this sense meant the "privilege or right of admission" to a royal court.
That sense today is of one who has privileged access—to the seats of power, to exclusive social circles. When you have entrée, you are a member of the "in" group. An Important Person takes your calls, because you have access. The velvet rope is opened for you, and those of us who lack entrée can do no more than press our noses to the glass.
Got a question for The Old Editor? Write to him at john.mcintyre@baltsun.com.