atelier

Definition

A studio or workshop, especially for an artist, designer, or fashion house.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French atelier, from Middle French astelier, from astelle (“small piece of wood, etc., to hold a broken bone in place, splint”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱs- (“axis; axle”)) + -ier (suffix denoting the location of an abode).

Example Sentences

• "The Dukes de Claulne, father and ſon, had laboratories for clock and vvatch making as vvell as for machinery. Theſe ateliers, as the French name them, vvere as fine and complete for the choice of tools as it vvas poſſible to find in Europe; […]"
• "I paid a visit to the celebrated [Antonio] Canova in his vast and interesting atelier. He had been at Naples a short time before to form his own judgment of the situation intended for the equestrian statue of Napoleon, which we saw already almost finished in his atelier."
• "The life of a young artist here is the easiest, merriest, dirtiest existence possible. […] [H]e arrives at his atelier at a tolerably early hour, and labours among a score of companions as merry and poor as himself."