All 4 Uses of
opportune
in
War and Peace
- Something always drew him toward those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.†
Chpt 3 *
- When the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment, ventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.†
Chpt 9
- It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle.†
Chpt 13
- Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess—not that anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to remember—yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from habit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions as to whether Prince Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevn†
Chpt 15inopportune = bad circumstances for a particular purpose -- especially the circumstance of timingstandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in inopportune means not and reverses the meaning of opportune. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
Definition:
favorable circumstances for a particular purpose -- especially the circumstance of good timing