pastiche
French, noun
pastiche is spelled P-A-S-T-I-C-H-E (8 letters) and appears about once in every 2 million words in written French, the 42,227th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Pastiche is a French masculine noun meaning “pastiche” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of pasticher. With an accent, pastiché is a different word: “past participle of pasticher”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Imitation de la manière d’un artiste ou d’un écrivain, soit par jeu, soit à dessein de suggérer la critique…”.
What does pastiche mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinepastiche
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- 2
second-person singular imperative
verb
- 1
past participle of pasticher
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Imitation de la manière d’un artiste ou d’un écrivain, soit par jeu, soit à dessein de suggérer la critique des procédés que l’on contrefait. 2. Imitation du costume, du ton et du style d’une époque.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of pastiche
- pastiches plural
- pastichée feminine
- pastichés masculine plural
- pastichées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to pastiche
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is pastiche in French?
pastiche appears about once in every 2 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).