Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
name
The archetypical sleepy English village that is the setting for a violent crime, as depicted in many works of detective fiction.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: attributive, often
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The genre of detective fiction in which violent crimes occur in sleepy English villages.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable
Topics: literature, media, publishing
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From mayhem (noun) + Latin parva (the feminine singular form of parvus (“little”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh2w- (“few, little; smallness”)), referring to village names in England such as Ashby Parva and Glen Parva. The term was coined by the British writer of detective fiction Colin Watson (1920–1983), referring to the works of the English author Agatha Christie (1890–1976).
