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As French finance minister in the late 1750s, Étienne de Silhouette gained a reputation for stinginess, and silhouette came to be used for anything skimped. One account of the application of the word to a simple picture showing a dark shape against a light background is that it carries on this notion of "simplicity" or "lack of finish," but an alternative theory is that Silhouette himself was in the habit of making such pictures.
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