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Friday September 3, 1999

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metier \met-YAY; MET-yay\ , noun:
1. An occupation; a profession.
2. An area in which one excels; an occupation for which one is especially well suited.

The pairing of Maynard and Salinger -- the writer whose metier is autobiography and the writer who's so private he won't even publish -- was an unlikely one.
-- Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Cult of Joyce Maynard", New York Times Magazine, September 6, 1998

In Congress, I really found my metier. . . . I love to legislate.
-- Charles Schumer, quoted in "Upbeat Schumer Battles Poor Polls and Turnouts and His Own Image", New York Times, May 16, 1998

He is in the position of a good production engineer suddenly shunted into salesmanship. It is not his metier.
-- James R. Mursell, "The Reform of the Schools", The Atlantic, December 1939

Metier is from the French, ultimately from Latin ministerium, "service, ministry, employment," from minister, "a servant, a subordinate."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for metier

 

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