Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woman's private sitting room, dressing room, or bedroom.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small room to which a lady may retire to be alone, or in which she may receive her intimate friends.
Wiktionary
- n. A woman's private sitting room, dressing room, or bedroom.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small room, esp. if pleasant, or elegantly furnished, to which a lady may retire to be alone, or to receive intimate friends; a lady's bedroom; a lady's (or sometimes a gentleman's) private room.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a lady's bedroom or private sitting room
Etymologies
- From French boudoir, from bouder ("to sulk"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from Old French bouder, to sulk. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This little summer-house, which he called his boudoir, was not much bigger than a sedan-chair; the door of it opened into the garden, which was covered with pinks, roses, and honeysuckles.”
“Before dinner I showed her my husband's pictures; and she was especially pleased with that which hung in the little room off the study, which I called my boudoir, -- a very ugly word, by the way, which I am trying to give up, -- with a curtain before it.”
“When Lawrence was gone, the old soldier found his daughter in a tastefully arranged closet which she called her boudoir, the miniature glass-door of which opened on a luxuriant garden, where wood, water, sunshine, and herbage, wild and tame, seemed to revel for the mastery.”
“Lady R-- rang the bell of the sitting-room, which she called a boudoir, and a lad of fourteen, in a blue blouse and leather belt made his appearance.”
“Knowing what a sperm and egg get up to in the privacy of their own boudoir is all very well, but understanding that if you let yourself be videoed having sex that film can be used against you is perhaps more useful.”
The Guardian: Shag bands, porn on mobile phones … kids need more help to understand sex
“Her boudoir is studded round with skulls like a charnel-house; and bold and dirty creatures from St. Giles come into her very dressing - room, with their rickety brats in their arms, to put their large misshapen heads under her inspection, as the future mighty geniuses of the land.”
Feminist Utopianism and Female Sexuality in Joanna Baillies Comedies
“Though the dictionary says that a boudoir is "un petit salon de dame," * it is really nothing more fancy or exciting than a pouting room.”
“I know a woman whose first-floor rooms are very artistically furnished in blue and gray, whose boudoir is in rose and ivory, and whose sewing room -- "her workshop" she calls it -- is in softest gray.”
“The flat on the right comprised a hall, a large drawing-room, a smaller sitting-room they called a boudoir, three bedrooms, a dining-room, a kitchen and a bathroom.”
“The word boudoir was a sweetmeat to Lena's palate, combined, as it was, with the knowledge that her visitor, with a sister, kept house in three rooms.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘boudoir’.
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Words that shouldn't be used on a fir...
probation, trekkie, wart, unemployed, fetish, suspended driver'..., felon, aerophagia, undies, debt collector, girlfriend, boyfriend and 272 more...
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FUN - Jeeves and Wooster - Jeeves
"Jeevesisms" as heard from the valet Jeeves in P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories.
abject, attire, boudoir, be agog to learn, breach of peace, companionship of ..., contract an engag..., correct orifice, determined temper..., edifice, endeavor to ascer..., expatiate and 46 more...
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phonetically speaking
they just sound nice
veranda, sequoia, boudoir, plinth, sinews, abeyance, engastrimyth, circumlocution, acedia, cadaver, ether
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bianca's euphonic list
paprika, poignant, poignancy, viscous, subtlety, robust, vehicular, combustion, viscosity, velocity, rotunda, malignant and 18 more...
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ShuckFinn's Words
abecedarian, conflate, mondegreen, whit, truculent, downright, pugnacious, effluvium, canker, inveigle, obfuscate, melancholy and 227 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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French words in German language
words and phrases with french background commonly used in the german language, so-called "Gallizismen"
trottoir, paravent, rayon, perron, fauteuil, garage, arrangement, etablissement, portemonnaie, parterre, coupé, voliere and 123 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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the_grene_kni3t's Words
acuarela, sesquipedalian, capital, métier, chap, cove, guv, guv'nor, ratiocination, transatlantique, ineffable, aural and 142 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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A Myriad of Irii
Iris varieties.
abbondanza, abiqua falls, about town, above the clouds, acadian miss, acapulco gold, act of kindness, adoregon, aegean wind, afternoon in rio, aggressively forward, agua fresca and 721 more...
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Spelling Bee list 2011
Abalone, ablution, absolution, aboriginally, abstemious, academician, acclamation, accommodation, acculturation, acetic, acetone, acme and 590 more...
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personal distaste
good grief, I'm getting irritable.
salvo, taboo, redoubtable, foment, intransigence, disingenuous, infarction, obviate, junta, aetiology, expedited, gerrymandering and 201 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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thegirlnextfloor's list
autumnal, avalanche, silhouette, antique, abysmal, scorch, sonic, surge, symmetry, whisper, penchant, dissipate and 349 more...
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froseph's list
saritorial, pogrom, synecdoche, metonymy, tonsorial, prophylactic, ozymandias, nepenthe, tonsorial, tranche, allodium, allodial and 156 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for boudoir.

bianca08 i love this word, it has such a soothing sound to it Apr 29, 2008
frindley Mozart wants to set his opera The Marriage of Figaro in a boudoir:
"Because I want to do a piece about real people, Baron! And I want to set it in a real place! A boudoir! – because that to me is the most exciting place on earth! Underclothes on the floor! Sheets still warm from a woman's body! Even a pisspot brimming under the bed!"
(Amadeus, Peter Shaffer) Apr 19, 2008
seanahan I have to restrain myself from making an inappropriate comment. Dec 29, 2006
the_grene_kni3t Fun fact: "Boudoir" comes from the Old French verb "bouder" meaning "to sulk". A boudoir is a lady's private sulking-room. Dec 29, 2006