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  1. boudoir love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A woman's private sitting room, dressing room, or bedroom.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A small room to which a lady may retire to be alone, or in which she may receive her intimate friends.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A woman's private sitting room, dressing room, or bedroom.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. 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

  1. n. a lady's bedroom or private sitting room

Etymologies

  1. From French boudoir, from bouder ("to sulk"). (Wiktionary)
  2. 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.”

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867

  • “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.”

    The Vicar's Daughter

  • “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.”

    The Rover of the Andes A Tale of Adventure on South America

  • “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.”

    Valerie

  • “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 Baillie’s 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.”

    French Word-A-Day:

  • “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.”

    Clothing Distinction

  • “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.”

    Maigret's Little Joke

  • “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.”

    Jewel Weed

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘boudoir’.

Comments

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  • 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

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‘boudoir’ has been looked up 2904 times, loved by 8 people, added to 34 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.