Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A saucy, coquettish, intriguing maidservant in comedies or comic opera.
- n. An actress or a singer taking such a part.
- n. A young woman regarded as flirtatious or frivolous.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Theat., a maidservant in comedy, frequently a lady's-maid. The part is usually characterized by coquetry, pertness, effrontery, and a spirit of intrigue: by extension the term is applied to almost any part exhibiting these qualities.
Wiktionary
- n. A female servant or attendant, especially as mischievous or cheeky, often featuring in theatrical comedies
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A female servant or attendant; specifically, as a term of the theater, a lady's maid, in comedies, who acts the part of an intrigante; a meddlesome, mischievous female servant or young woman.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a minor female role as a pert flirtatious lady's maid in a comedy
- n. a pert or flirtatious young girl
Etymologies
- From French soubrette, from Occitan soubreto, the feminine of soubret ‘coy’, from soubra (Provençal sobrar), from Latin superare ‘be above’. (Wiktionary)
- French, from Provençal soubreto, feminine of soubret, conceited, from soubra, to leave aside, from Old Provençal sobrar, to be excessive, from Latin superāre, from super, above; see uper in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In classical music and opera, the term soubrette refers to both a soprano voice type and a particular type of opera role.”
“In theatre, the term soubrette describes a comedy character who is vain and girlish, mischievous, lighthearted, coquettish and gossipy--often a chambermaid or confidante of the ingenue, she often displays a flirtatious or even sexually aggressive nature.”
“A moment later, a waiting-woman, of middle age, and too well trained to dress like a "soubrette" of comedy, opened the door to him.”
“The Chevalier Cocona, who had the misfortune to be suffering from a venereal disease, gave me up his mistress, a pretty little 'soubrette'; but in spite of the evidence of my own eyes, and in spite of the assurances she gave me, I could not make up my mind to have her, and my fear made me leave her untouched.”
“The role of the anguished femme fatale could have been made for the foxy, soubrette-ish Vallo, while Singleton's portrayal of the devoted, despairing Moon Dog is at once restrained and touching.”
“They married the following year and she became the leading lady and soubrette in the Williams and Walker Company, soon after becoming famous in her own right as a performer of the Cakewalk.”
“There was in Candy the femme fatale, the southern belle, the damsel in distress, the man-in-a-dress, the soubrette, the coquette, the vamp, the lady, and the tramp.”
“Smoke is semi-gallantly seeking to help Lucille Arral, "the singing soubrette of the tiny stock company that performed nightly at the Palace Opera House," and to make a fast buck while putting some life into a moribund Dawson.”
“The cabin boy in question, is on one of the bettor's yacht headed for Honolulu and when "he" falls overboard and is helped back on deck, is discovered by the yachtsman to be a girl, "a chit of a child" of 16, an orphan and "a soubrette of no mean ability.”
“Composers such as Oscar Straus, Franz Lehár, and Edmund Eysler wrote for her expressive soubrette voice.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘soubrette’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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phrontistery-s
from phrontistery.info
sabaton, sabbatarian, sabbulonarium, sabelline, sabin, sable, sabliere, sabot, sabretache, sabulous, saburration, saccade and 1593 more...
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A Sequel to 250 Spelling Words
Words to quiz the intermediate and advanced speller alike
amatorio, esemplastic, etesian, cholecystitis, chantepleure, paternoster, mondegreen, aporia, kairos, idioglossia, klepht, phansigar and 238 more...
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Ayatollah's list
Trinkets of lexical goodness.
floccinaucinihili..., quomodocunquize, curmudgeon, illaqueate, ipsissimosity, heterochthonous, hakenkreuz, forisfamiliate, appropinquate, apodyopsis, baryphony, cachinnate and 146 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Specifically
Being a list of words which have "specifically" in their definitions.
recompose, specifically, Dutch, abstinence, discipline, virtue, namely, opening, century, amalgamation, cup, second and 303 more...
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pretentious words i have used or hope...
a list of pretentious words i have used or hope to use when discussing operas because they make me feel like i am considerably more knowledgeable about opera than i actually am.
pulchritudinous, divina, libretto, diegetic, syncretism, mezzo-soprano, contralto, coloratura, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, bass and 42 more...
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Words of the day
The list of Wordnik words of the day.
panurgic, chapfallen, billingsgate, latration, witticaster, slitheroo, rux, crotchet, mirliton, arenose, ruelle, jane-of-apes and 76 more...
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Maids
Maids of all stripes.
twait-shad, chambermaid, demoiselle, fille de chambre, housemaid, amah, lady's maid, femme-de-chambre, tire-woman, soubrette, comb-brush, abigail and 80 more...
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difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 283 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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(more or less) Temporary Urth List
Temporary list is temporary.
Collecting a few words here, which are then to be alloted to other lists.vassal, gnaw, putrescence, liege, pederasty, disseminate, loot, waning, fitful, hiatuse, plow, pious and 292 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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play words
words for a play
pert, vicissitude, melancholy, vexation, gaud, attestation, renunciation, wax, wrought, sunder, antipodes, reckoning and 236 more...
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Who Are You?
No one ever says, "I want to be a somnambulist when I grow up." But don't let that get in the way of organizing your Wordie lists.
chevalier, somnambulist, sommelier, troubadour, vicar, majordomo, caliph, polyglot, polymath, apprentice, nuyorican, privateer and 107 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for soubrette.

grant_barrett This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day. Nov 11, 2009
chained_bear "The amateur trotting horses who were just leaving the track from the last race were in a white lather—nervous, quivering, sensitive things. But Dan Patch was the old bored professional. When he looked up at the crowd it was like an old soubrette peeping through the curtains. He took one look and jogged on with about as much emotion as a butcher's delivery horse."
—Charles Leerhsen, Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 318 Oct 28, 2008