[bee-uh-tris, bee-tris for 1, 3; bee-a-tris for 2; for 1, 3 also It. be-ah-tree-che] 
| 1. | (in Dante's Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy) a symbolic figure developed from the person whom Dante first saw as a child and loved as an ideal of womanhood. |
| 2. | a city in SE Nebraska. 12,891. |
| 3. | a female given name: from a Latin word meaning “one who brings joy.” |
Beatrice
the woman to whom the great Italian poet Dante dedicated most of his poetry and almost all of his life, from his first sight of her at the age of nine ("from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul") through his glorification of her in La divina commedia, completed 40 years later, to his death in 1321.
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