Definitions
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a stupid mistake
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Si ils sont vos amis j'imagine que ils ont fait une betise culturelle, un insulte peut-etre, donc les clientes ont reagi mal ... on ne sait pas.
Top McCain Surrogates Questioning Obama's American-Ness 2009
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You give it up! — for what? — for a betise, for an absurd scruple.
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Ne pas se laisser faire et resister contre la betise!
suspendered 2006
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If it had been pride that interfered with her accepting Lord Warburton such a betise was singularly misplaced; and she was so conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the very softness, and the fine intelligence, of sympathy.
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In what point is the Darwaysh more a mummer or in what does he show more of betise than the quack?
Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah 2003
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_Adam: _ C'est le premier homme, Dieu en fait un grand nigaud, qui pour complaire a sa femme eut la betise de mordre dans une pomme que ses descendans n'ont point encore pu digerer.
Baron D'Holbach : a Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France Max Pearson Cushing 1918
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Adam: C'est le premier homme, Dieu en fait un grand nigaud, qui pour complaire a sa femme eut la betise de mordre dans une pomme que ses descendans n'ont point encore pu digerer.
Baron d'Holbach Cushing, Max Person 1914
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I had no sooner spoken the words than I felt that somehow I had been guilty of a betise.
The Moon Endureth: Tales and Fancies John Buchan 1907
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"_Nous allons parler Francais_" I announced, desirous of finding out whether their whole stock was represented by _diable_ and _betise_;
The Solitary Summer Elizabeth von Arnim 1903
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He will commit in one meal every betise that a senllion fresh from the plow-tail is capable of, and he will continue to repeat those faults.
American Notes Rudyard Kipling 1900
srkrause commented on the word betise
as in: what a buttwang does.
March 2, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word betise
"When he saw them again, on that morning in August after returning from a visit to the city, he found them quite as submissive and conceited as ever; and he, once again trapped in their especial variety of confessional antechamber (in which they oft be labored him with successions of halting effusions), sought escape by firing off--or more properly, stammering--a bêtise on the "perfumed scent" of his butler's arrhythmic respiration, which was indeed perceptible to him in more than one--and to more than one--sense."
The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 47
September 16, 2013