grisette

[ gri-zet ]

noun
  1. a young French workingwoman.

Origin of grisette

1
1690–1700; <French, equivalent to gris gray (see griseous) + -ette-ette; originally a cheap gray fabric, or dress made of such fabric, worn by young working women in the garment trade

Other words from grisette

  • gri·set·tish, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use grisette in a sentence

  • The three grisettes, however, kept up an incessant fire of small talk and squabble.

    In the Days of My Youth | Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
  • The grisettes suddenly forgot their differences, and began to chat quite amicably.

    In the Days of My Youth | Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
  • Those little grisettes sometimes have the presumption to insist on being virtuous.

  • In the first you meet the fashionable and rich, and in the last, the students with their grisettes, and the still poorer classes.

    Paris: With Pen and Pencil | David W. Bartlett
  • Of course the grisettes could not be taken with them, and the ties of years were suddenly and rudely to be snapped asunder.

    Paris: With Pen and Pencil | David W. Bartlett

British Dictionary definitions for grisette

grisette

/ (ɡrɪˈzɛt) /


noun
  1. (esp formerly) a French working-class girl, esp a pretty or flirtatious one

  2. an edible toadstool of the genus Amanita of broad-leaved and birch woods

Origin of grisette

1
C18: from French, from grisette grey fabric used for dresses, from gris grey

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012