au courant
1
9.9
- idiom
- /oʊ kʊˈrɑ̃/
- Formal
:
al corriente
- She is always au courant with the latest technology trends and innovations.
- stay au courant
- look au courant
Examples
-
For an educator, this lack of interest was stupefying, and the result was that, strapped for funds, the Foreign Service Institute, the diplomatic educational and training agency, could do little to assist officers in keeping au courant.
Academic text (1991) -
It was a very au courant movie.
Blog text (30) -
It's au courant, just what you want
-
I thought you were au courant, pretty face.
Fiction book (1996) -
He also felt it his duty to stay au courant with contemporary culture, however empty and irritating he found much of it.
Academic text (1995) -
The scarf goes without saying, but a checkered kaffiyeh seems more au courant.
Blog text (33) -
Although interesting and certainly au courant, a history that preoccupies itself primarily with the boundaries of civilizations runs a risk of becoming marginal history.
Academic text (2005) -
I am not, owing to the lapse of Herald Tribune home delivery, au courant with affairs.
Fiction book (1999) -
At once unsentimentally au courant and fixated on that past, Marker was the Janus of world cinema.
Blog text (8) -
We had co-curated "The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" exhibition for the Fowler Museum in 1995 and subsequently stayed au courant of Vodou's ever-evolving scene.
Academic text (2004)
Synonyms
142
7.0
Knowing a lot about something
92
4.1
A person who has learned a lot about a subject
33
3.5
A person who knows a lot about a subject or the world
22
7.9
To understand current ideas and styles
22
7.5
Aware of a fact or a situation
9
5.8
Having the latest information about something
Well informed about a subject or recent news
Someone who knows a lot about a subject because they have the facts
Antonyms
How Informed
Surface Forms
Morphology
au + courant
The phrase is a direct French composition: 'au' (to/at) + 'courant' (current/up-to-date), yielding a literal sense of 'at the current' → 'up to date' or 'aware'. For a B1 learner who knows the constituent words, the overall meaning is derivable from their combination and follows a transparent compositional logic, so it is easily comprehensible.
Etymology
Au courant comes from French: the words au and courant mean 'with' and 'running' or 'current', so imagine being carried along by a fast stream of news. That's why au courant means 'up to date' and well informed.