grande duchesse
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: grandes duchesses
Senses: examples: text: When the procession reached the cathedral, it found the Corps Diplomatique, headed by the Ambassador of Spain, standing on the right of the dais, near the south gate, and at the side of the places reserved for the Imperial family. Behind were the Councillors of the Empire, the Ministers, the Senators; then the ladies of honour, the mistresses of the Courts of the Grandes Duchesses, the maids of honour, &c.
ref: 1865 July, “Monthly Intelligence. Foreign News, Domestic Occurrences, and Notes of the Month.”, in The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Review, London: John Henry and James Parker, page 98, column 1:
text: Imagine me a heroine or / Even a princess, / A stately Cleopatra now, / And then a grande duchesse. / Perhaps I’ll lead a ballet, or / Surrounded by my lords, / I’ll trip it, trip it, trip it, as / An empress on the boards.
ref: 1872, S. H. Gatty, “The Barmecide: A Muddle, Founded on the Stories of the Barber’s Brothers in the Arabian Nights”, in Mrs. Alfred Gatty [i.e., w:Margaret Gatty], editor, Aunt Judy’s Christmas Volume for 1872, London: Bell and Daldy, […], page 84:
text: “You want to kiss, kiss, kiss, all the while. You mustn’t do it, with a stitch in your side. Do you think that I have gone wild? You never tried getting rich in a single night. My hundred thousand dollars have flown to my head. I am effervescing with plans. I can understand the Bacchantes. I should like to swing a bunch of grapes, and caper with the Dancing Faun. What do you think of this for a Grande Duchesse?”
ref: 1875, J[ohn] W[illiam] De Forest, “Mr. Hollowbread in the Bosphorus”, in Playing the Mischief. A Novel., New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 172, column 2:
text: He bowed low and he offered his flowers at the feet, not of the Grande Duchesse Olga, whose national peasant dress corresponded so harmoniously with his own, but of the little friend who sat so quietly beside her.
ref: 1876, [Maria M. Grant], “Conclusion. Mi-Carême.”, in The Sun-Maid. A Romance., volume III, London: Richard Bentley and Son, […], page 292:
text: A dash of smaller dimensions is the visit of the Grand Duc Serge and his grande duchesse to Balmoral.
ref: 1893 October 15, “French Labor Troubles. M. Sardou, the Dramatist, Interviewed on His Methods. The Russian Reception. Very Little Enthusiasm in Advance Over the Event—Dr. Herz Protected by Illness—Plenty of Purple Grapes Make Wine Very Cheap.”, in The Pittsburg Press, volume 10, number 285, Pittsburg[h], Pa., page 9, column 3:
text: The season was at its height, and all the hotels were crowded, especially the Splendide. A grande duchesse with her suite occupied the guest-rooms on the first floor, where Mrs. Hallam ought to be; the King of Greece had all the second floor south of the main entrance; while English, Jews, Spaniards, Greeks, and Russians had the rooms at the other end of the hall. […] You know you are beautiful, with a grande-duchesse air which makes everybody turn to look at you, even the king.
ref: 1894, Mary J[ane] Holmes, Mrs. Hallam’s Companion, Philadelphia, Pa.: J. B. Lippincott Company, pages 768 (At Aix-les-Bains) and 776 (Grace Haynes):
text: I went one day to Worth with Madame B⁠⸺, and to my great joy we were allowed to see a dress made for the Grande Duchesse Vladimir to wear at a soirée at the Comtesse Greffulhe’s.
ref: 1901, Country Life, volume 9, page xix:
text: It was not long before the young resident Parisians, who, like most grown children, were all terrible little snobs, began to whisper that Olga was certainly of the Russian imperial family. This was a vague rumor, but finally substantial stories came forth, and the exquisite aloofness of Olga’s manner helped the idea along. They said she was a grande duchesse placed incog in the convent for a unique experience. It was the time of the Franco-Russian entente, and the most aristocratic young women in France were soon at the Russian’s feet.
ref: 1910, Lucy de Grasse Martin, “Magnificent Olga”, in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, volume LXXX, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co.; London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., page 132, columns 1–2:
text: Anthony Drexel has also been entertaining the Royal House of Russia, and gave a large dinner for the grande duchesse Vladimir at his own home on the Avenue Bois de Boulogne. The grande duchesse is tall, slender, and very dark, with a most wonderful command of the English language, which she speaks with a delicious inflection, hardly an accent, so one scarcely knows what to call it.
ref: 1914 August, “Frills and Frivolities”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume XLIX, number 8, New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, page 50:
text: Little beauties entered the dressing room back of the Municipal Theater stage on the night of the final dress rehearsal preceding the current Style Show, meekly, timidly, standing about waiting for instructions. But let one of them once get inside a sable wrap, a silk duvetyn coat, and beneath a silver or gold lace hat, and she became a grande duchesse in manner, just as if Cinderella’s fairy godmother had waved her wand over her.
ref: 1920 August 15, Marguerite Martyn, “Prima Donnaitis Attacks Fashion Models: Temperament Behind the Scenes the Fashion Show; Old Timers at the Exhibition Display Superior Airs”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 72, number 351, St. Louis, Mo., page three, column 1:
text: This was my first opportunity really “to get” an audience and I realized then that it was portraying a type more human than a Grande Duchesse or a Queen that gets one over the footlights and into the hearts of those on the other side.
ref: 1924, Marie Dressler, The Eminent American Comedienne Marie Dressler in The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling: An Autobiographical Fragment in Seven Parts; […], New York, N.Y.: Robert M[edill] McBride & Company, page 43:
text: Miss Elsa Maxwell, dining with the Grand Duc and Grande Duchesse Boris, entertained also, later in the evening, the Grand Duc Dimitri.
ref: 1924 February, van Campen Stewart, “Paris Still Wears Its Two Favorite Silhouettes: The Parisienne Wears a Sleek Shingle Above, Impartially, Either a Tube or Circular Frock, As Long As the Frock Is Simple”, in Harper’s Bazar, number 2536, New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, page 47:
text: Toward nightfall her valet de chambre brought in a letter that he announced portentously came from the grande duchesse of Berg and Cleves.
ref: 1973, Elizabeth Mayhew, My Son Charles, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, published 1976, page 183:
text: Antoinette and I passed out nursing aprons to the cream of Deauville Society—the duchesses and grandes duchesses, the vicomtesses and marquises—young and middle-aged, some in their seventies who had rallied to help save the victims of the sales boches.
ref: 1990, Patricia B. Soliman, Coco, the Novel, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 116:
glosses: Alternative form of grande-duchesse.