vedette

English

Alternative forms

• vidette

Etymology

From French vedette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vəˈdɛt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

vedette (plural vedettes)

1. (historical, military) A sentinel, usually on horseback, stationed on the outpost of an army, to watch an enemy and give notice of danger.
   • 1815 June 19, Arthur Wellesley, Wellingon's Waterloo dispatch to Lord Bathurst:

     The enemy made no effort to pursue Marshal Blücher. On the contrary, a patrole which I sent to Sombref in the morning found all quiet; and the enemy's vedettes fell back as the patrole advanced.

   • 2021 February 16, Dan Richards, “Peak cabin: a fire-spotter's lonely vantage point in Washington state”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     My goal was Desolation Peak, the cabin where rookie vedette Jack Kerouac spent 63 eventful days in the summer of 1956.

2. (entertainment) A cabaret performer, usually the main female artist of a show.
   • 2005, Coco Fusco, Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, Routledge, →ISBN, page 44:

     Josephine Baker arrived in Cuba in 1951. When this famous black American vedette arrived—she who had first enraptured Paris and later the rest of Europe—Rita Montaner played a trick on her. La Baker, as well as Cuban vedettes and rumba dancers, had conquered Europe by selling exoticism to an avid European public.

Further reading

• vedette (sentry) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vedette (cabaret) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Vedette in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “vedette”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Dutch

Etymology

From French vedette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vəˈdɛtə/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

vedette c (plural vedettes or vedetten, diminutive vedettetje n)

1. celebrity, star

   Synonyms: ster, beroemdheid, beroemde

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian vedetta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /və.dɛt/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

vedette f (plural vedettes)

1. (slightly dated) star (celebrity)

   Les plus grandes vedettes étaient présentes lors de cet évènement.

   The biggest stars were present at this event.

2. (nautical) flagship
3. (lexicography) headword (word used as the title of a section)
4. (military, historical) vedette (sentry)

Derived terms

• voler la vedette

Descendants

• → English: vedette
• → Polish: wedeta
• → Portuguese: vedeta
• → Romanian: vedetă
• → Spanish: vedete

Further reading

• “vedette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veˈdɛt/
• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

vedette f (invariable)

1. star (celebrity)

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veˈdet.te/
• Rhymes: -ette
• Hyphenation: ve‧dét‧te

Noun

vedette f

1. plural of vedetta

Etymology 3

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /veˈdet.te/, (traditional) /veˈdɛt.te/
• Rhymes: -ette, (traditional) -ɛtte
• Hyphenation: ve‧dét‧te, (traditional) ve‧dèt‧te

Verb

vedette

1. (archaic or colloquial) third-person singular past historic of vedere

Spanish

Noun

vedette f (plural vedettes)

1. Alternative spelling of vedete

Further reading

• “vedette”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014