a la carte
1
4.3
- adjective
- /ˌɑː lə ˈkɑːrt/
:
a la carta
- The restaurant offers an a la carte menu, allowing you to choose each dish you want individually.
- order a la carte
- a la carte dinner
Examples
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This has also always been an option for Lala users as well, a "pre-paid wallet" system so credits are available to users, instead of a-la-carte 10-cent charges for each transaction showing up on a user's bill.
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DirecTV didn't propose offering the Pac-12 network a la carte to treat the Pac-12 differently from all other sports programming.
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I'm going to grab a little bit more, prepare them a la carte like that.
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You know, it's, it's very a la carte, isn't it?
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How many of them are available to DTV subscribers a la carte or on demand?
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It proposed that the Pac-12 be offered a la carte until a permanent deal can be worked out.
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If P12 let DTV put the net on a la carte, Dish and the cable companies would be enraged.
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(The St. Regis serves breakfast a la carte and does serve a brunch buffet on holidays).
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The first proposal (making the Pac12Nets a "stand-alone channel") means offering them in a la carte fashion (think: HBO).
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Offering the network a la carte on DirecTV grants them a temporary respite from any subscriber flight, and that flight is what the Pac-12 wants until they come to terms.
Blog text (16)
Antonyms
How Limited
Surface Forms
Morphology
a + la + carte
This is a direct borrowing from French (à la carte) whose literal parts ('a' + 'la' + 'carte') are not productive English morphemes; the full meaning ('each dish priced/ordered separately, by the menu') is compositional in French but not obviously derivable to an English learner who only knows English words. Learners who recognize 'carte' as 'menu' or who know Romance-language equivalents (e.g. Spanish a la carta) will find it partially transparent, but for many B1 learners the foreign article + noun structure makes the phrase only partially predictable.
Etymology
A la carte comes from French; the word carte means 'card' or 'menu', and the phrase showed the idea of picking dishes one by one from the menu. So used as an adjective or adverb, it means ordering or serving food where each item is chosen and paid for separately.