Wiktionary

grande dame

English edit

WOTD – 28 December 2024

Etymology edit

 
The English actress Dame Maggie Smith, a grande dame (sense 2) of the stage and screen.

Borrowed from French grande dame, from grande (the feminine form of grand (“great, grand”)) + dame (“lady”).[1][2] Doublet of grandam.

The plural form grandes dames is borrowed from French grandes dames.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

grande dame (plural grandes dames) (also attributive)

  1. A woman who is high-ranking, socially prominent, or has a dignified character, especially one who is advanced in age and haughty.
    Synonyms: dowager, (socially prominent woman) doyenne, grande madame
    • a. 1856 (date written), Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VIII, in A[rthur] B[ell] Nicholls, editor, The Professor, a Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 140:
      In general the Continental, or at least the Belgian old women permit themselves a license of manners, speech, and aspect, such as our venerable grand-dames would recoil from as absolutely disreputable, […]
    • 1865, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Feathery Seeds that were Freighted with Fruit of the Future”, in Strathmore: A Romance […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 219:
      You only 'make love' languidly to some grande dame, who blinds him with sandal-wood and stifles him in lace; […]
    • 1883, Charlotte M[ary] Yonge, “A Patient Grisel”, in Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret de Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, pages 232–233:
      Now the Baronne de Ribaumont Walwyn was a veritable grande dame, and Madame Croquelebois, in spite of her sharp nose, and sharper tongue, was quite cowed by her, and absolutely driven to confess that she had not heard a word against Madame la Contesse.
    • 1902 March, Gertrude Franklin Atherton, chapter III, in The Conqueror: Being the True and Romantic Story of Alexander Hamilton, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, book I (Rachel Levine), page 15:
      Do you no longer want to go to Europe? to court? to be grande dame and converse with princes?
    • 1966 August 19, “Resorts: Happening at the Hamptons”, in Time‎[1], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2010-10-28:
      "Beatniks," snorted one grande dame as she pushed her way toward her chauffeur-driven limousine.
    • 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 141:
      She has been buying (under my guidance) new clothes and she looks quite the grande dame.
  3. A woman who is accomplished and influential, and is a respected senior figure in a particular field; a doyenne.
  4. (figurative) A very highly regarded and well-known institution or structure, or large conveyance such as a ship.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

woman who is accomplished and influential, and is a respected senior figure in a particular field — see doyenne

References edit

  1. ^ “grande dame, n. and adj.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023.
  2. ^ “grande dame, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.

Further reading edit

French edit

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Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

grande dame f (plural grandes dames)

  1. great lady, grande dame
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