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Debutante   Listen
noun
Debutante, Debutant  n.  A person who makes his (or her) first appearance before the public.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Debutante" Quotes from Famous Books



... a debutante go to sleep at her first ball? Sleep in such good company, the company of this captain who was smiling all the while with his eyes; smiling at his mud house, at the hardships in the trenches, and, I hope, at having a guest who had been with ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... than a week in the town; but into that week was packed perhaps rather more than the allowance of new impressions and excitement of one sort and another that go to make up the record of her first season in town for the average human debutante. The cynic might protest that many a modern debutante is as certainly put up for sale to the highest bidder of the town season as Jan was. Well, at least the thing is a good deal more carefully wrapped up and veiled, and a great deal more time is ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... "The debutante, be she whom she may, should feel flattered by such an unexampled assemblage of all the ton ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... no conscience. She began to gad about the bush. In her girlish days she wore short frocks, as it were, having had her wings clipped, but the next spring she went into society, was a debutante, wore a dress of black and white satin which shone in the sun, and she grew so vain and flighty, and strutted about so, that it was really ridiculous to watch her. She began also to stay out late in the evening, which was very improper, and before going ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... discovered in his bed this morning, where he had evidently lain dead for many hours. Police are seeking a motive for the crime, which may have its origin in the fact that White only recently announced his engagement to Margot Vernee, young and exceedingly pretty French debutante. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... white gown fell from sloping, well powdered shoulders and its filminess softened wonderfully the lines which were beginning to harden her face. She had dressed with the eagerness of a debutante, and her eyes were luminous, her cheeks delicately flushed with the excitement of it and with happiness at the ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... in mid-December. Carlisle, recuperating from a gay debutante rout on the evening preceding, remained in bed. By this time the "season" was well under way: all signs promised an exceptionally gay winter, and Carlisle was, as ever, in constant demand. She had meant to spend ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Then a deathly faintness came over the debutante, and without a word or motion she sank upon the stage, like a statue of snow which the sun ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... the foregoing and packs her trunks for this tropical spot, let me warn her that it is so hot that the powder stays on about as well as water on a duck's back, and a lizard is liable to drop in her lap at any time. At least that is what happened to the smallest debutante of our party, Miss Sallie Glide, at one of the dances given in honor of the San Francisco Delegates. And while some of the young couples of our party were strolling through the wonderful botanical gardens admiring the Travelers Palm, whose fan-shaped branches are ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer

... have done, and he had a long, new, shiny, freshly sharpened lead pencil sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat. He tried to come in smartly with a businesslike air, but it wouldn't have fooled a blind man, because he was as nervous as a debutante. It struck me as one of the funniest things—and one of the most pathetic—I had ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... number, she stepped up to the footlights and awaited the verdict. Had she made good, or not? In a moment, however, she knew that all was well, for a storm of applause and clapping of hands filled the air. Lumley, from his place in the wings, beamed approval. His enterprise was to be rewarded. The debutante was a success. No doubt about it. She should have a contract from him before any other manager should step ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... finishing touch; it was a coarse, dingy little hand, with some tawdry rings. Raymond never liked close quarters; neither in those days, nor ever after, did he care to come decisively to grips with actual life. "Keep off!" was what his look said to the offender. The poor, puzzled little debutante quickly stepped back, and we all regained the street. Raymond was trembling with embarrassment ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... Debilitate, debonair, debutante, decadence, decapitate, deciduous, declivity, decompose, decorous, dedicatory, deduction, deferential, deficiency, deglutition, dehiscence, delectable, delete, deleterious, delineate, deliquescent, demarcation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... favor of it; and instantly, by an occult law which governs fashionable life, Bar Harbor became the fashion. Everybody could see its preeminent attractions. The word was passed along by the Boudoir Telephone from Boston to New Orleans, and soon it was a matter of necessity for a debutante, or a woman of fashion, or a man of the world, or a blase boy, to show themselves there during the season. It became the scene of summer romances; the student of manners went there to study the "American girl." The notion ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... looked after my health. A half ounce of rum, a pint of cocoanut-milk from a very young nut, the juice of half a lime just from the tree, two lumps of sugar, and I had an invigorating draught, long enough for a golf player after thirty-six holes, and delicate enough for a debutante after her first cotillion. The Paumotan boys and Pae looked on in horror, saying that I was spoiling ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... Herr Klug, entitled "The Five Blackbirds," and displayed a wonderful command of the resources of the keyboard. For encore she dashed off a brilliant morceau by Herr Klug, entitled "Echoes de Seraglio." This was very difficult, but for the fair debutante it was child's play. She got five recalls, and after the concert held an impromptu reception in her dressing-room, her happy parents being warmly congratulated by their fellow townsmen. We predict a great career for Irene Murray. Among those ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... operations be continual increase, had no reason, nor had the others, his friends, to put himself out for the sake of one Briton more or less, but he rested not till he had accomplished all in my behalf that a mother could think of for her debutante daughter. ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... not only an authority on musical comedies and pony ballets, but he was equally well posted on dogs, and a debutante across the table appealed to him for advice in breeding an Airedale bitch she had purchased at the last show. The discussion that followed was sufficiently frank to embarrass the aristocratic Airedale herself had she been present, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... half dozen women trailed out, Natalie in white, softly rustling as she moved, Mrs. Haverford in black velvet, a trifle tight over her ample figure, Marion Hayden, in a very brief garment she would have called a frock, perennial debutante that she was, rather negligible Mrs. Terry Mackenzie, and trailing behind the others, frankly loath to leave the men, Audrey Valentine. Clayton Spencer's eyes rested on Audrey with a smile of amused toleration, on her outrageously ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass, in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real debutante, of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before the Honourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked to look at her better than any one here except ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... his art. Rachel did not in the least doubt his skill, and obeyed him in everything as faithfully as she would have done, had he been personally a favourite with her. "Allow me to express my great delight and my strong admiration for the young debutante. As far as Miss O'Mahony is concerned the word failure may be struck out of the language. And no epithet should be used to qualify success, but one in the most superlative degree. Allow me to—" And he attempted to raise her hand to ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... polish up the little silver name plate. It is the custom in our neighbourhood (so one observes through drawing room windows) to have reading lamps with rosy pink shades and at least two beautiful daughters of debutante age. I hope I am not unjust, but our street looks to me like the kind of place where people take warm baths, in a roomy old china tub, on Sunday afternoons. After that, they go downstairs and play a hymn on ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... another; Grandmother because she was eighty, and it's a strenuous matter to live eighty years; my Aunt because she had been desperately ill; C. C. because she had nursed my Aunt back to comparative health, and I because I had been a debutante that winter, and every one knows that that is the hardest work of all. We went as far south as the train would take us, and settled ourselves at Coronado to bask in the sunshine until the tiredness was gone and we became a band of explorers, with the world ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... description in one phrase of all he could have done for the ill-starred debutante who had been hungry in the wrong place, Cecil lounged out of the club to drive with half a dozen of his set to a water-party—a Bacchanalian water-party, with the Zu-Zu and her sisters for the Naiads and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... of the thing. She is powerfully built, and her muscles are master of coordination, such as would be the envy of multitudes of men, and with all this power, she is as simple in her manner and appearance as is the young debutante at her coming out function. You are impressed with her sweetness and refinement, first of all, and the utter lack of show about her, as also with her brother who is a dapper young man of the very English type, ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... to find Ross to show him the completed debutante, so Arethusa had time alone in which to admire to her ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... write! Debutante was Kitty, Frivolous and witty as ever bud that blew. Kitty lacked sobriety, yet she ran society, A leader whom the chaperons indulged a year or two; Corner-men, eligibles, dancing-dolls she knew,— Kitty then was slighted, ne'er ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... episodes of his life and his reign have been in a large measure due to the press, inasmuch as they were either originated or envenomed by the newspapers. William is as nervous about what the papers will say as a young debutante on the stage. Not only does he keep an anxious watch upon the utterances of all German editors, but he ordains a vigilant scrutiny of the articles printed in foreign countries from the pens of correspondents stationed in Berlin, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... and especially less expensive, for unmarried men than it used to be. Even if a hostess asks a favor in return for weeks of hospitality, the sacrifice she requires of a man is rarely greater than a cotillion with an unattractive debutante whom she is trying to launch; or the sitting through a particularly dull opera in order to see her to the carriage, her lord and master having slipped off early to his club and a quiet game of pool. Many people who read these lines are old enough to remember that ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned, and looking as smart as any debutante, slipped her ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... O'Hara ignored Gabriella, and turned his alert questioning glance on the little seamstress. Fanny had sauntered up the walk to join the group—Fanny in all the glory of her yellow curls, and her "debutante slouch "—and he bowed gravely to her without the faintest change of expression. If he admired Fanny's beauty and pitied Miss Polly's plainness, there was no hint of it in the indifferent look he turned from the girl to ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... know all her hopes are set on me; that if I fail her she has no one ready to take my place! Because she was so sure of me, she did not try to bring on any other pupil for next autumn. And last season was a bad one for her and Monsieur. Their debutante failed; they lost money. Behold this child!" she exclaimed, with a rapid return to her old gay manner, "to whom I have explained all this at least a hundred times already, and he asks me why ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... three weddings had occurred in Hamilton! The Dunlap, the Miles, the Drake wedding. And within the last year and a half Judge Marshall, after proposing season after season to the most popular debutante, had married lovely little Karen Plummer. Suddenly a sentence from Ralph Hammond's story of his engagement to Nita Leigh Selim popped up in Dundee's memory: "And once I got cold-sick because I thought she might still be married, but she said her husband had married again, ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... women, nevertheless, Hildreth was easily my choice already ... Darrie was lovely, but talked like a debutante from morning ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... not to act too old, Kitty," said Patty, earnestly, "but truly everybody thinks I'm a society lady. They don't even look on me as a debutante." ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... cuirassiers dashing headlong against stolid invincible red-faced lines of German infantry; furious and bloody grapplings in the streets of little villages of northeastern France. There was one thing at least of which he could still feel the spirit of a debutante. In this matter of war he was not, too, unlike a young girl embarking upon her first season of opera. Walkely, the next morning, saw this mood sitting quaintly upon Coleman and cackled with astonishment and glee. Coleman's usual manner did not return until he ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... take off her riding-habit. Quickly she dressed Clara, superintending all the details of her disguise as carefully as though she were the costumer of a new debutante. When Clara was dressed she was so nearly of the same size and shape of Capitola that from behind no one would have suspected ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... the alarm which affects the fair debutante at a court presentation, he beheld the confusing labyrinth of counters, department aisles and shelves, which combine in such a depressing suggestion of intellectual plethora and transient futility in ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... worse," our other self responded, "as when in the german the fair debutante sees the leader advancing toward her with a splendid and costly favor, only to have him veer abruptly off to bestow it on some fat elderling who is going to give the next ball. But Mr. Pulitzer, though he has these spare intimations of pity, has none of the sentiment which there is rather a swash ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... flitting from Bud to Debutante to Ingenue to Fawn to Broiler to Kiddykadee back in 1880, he was a famous Beau with skin- tight Trousers, a white Puff Tie run through a Gold Ring and a Hat lined with Puff Satin, the ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... Gard answered. "Haven't had time to bother. By the way, Mahr, what sort of a girl is the little debutante daughter of Mrs. Marteen—you know her, don't you?" He was watching Mahr keenly, and fancied he detected a shifty glance at the mention of the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... form? Ah, there is the secret! Rumours go abroad that the inexhaustible Paisiello, charmed with her performance of his "Nel cor piu non me sento," and his "Io son Lindoro," will produce some new masterpiece to introduce the debutante. Others insist upon it that her forte is the comic, and that Cimarosa is hard at work at another "Matrimonia Segreto." But in the meanwhile there is a check in the diplomacy somewhere. The Cardinal is observed to be out of humour. He has said publicly,—and the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... evident that much of the magnificent performance of the debutante and her companion, in the thrilling scene between the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara and the young Captain Gennaro, was lost ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... him, among those who had not yet lost that old-fashioned art, were very few—a young girl here and there, over whom he had been absent-mindedly sentimental; a debutante or two who had adored him from a distance as a friend of elder sister or brother; here and there an old, old lady to whom he had been considerate, and who perhaps remembered something of the winning charm of the Siwards when the town was young—his father, perhaps, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... came, the Ferrises gave me a beautiful dinner, and I wore evening dress for the first time in two years, and was as thrilled as a debutante at her first ball! It was so good to see cut glass and silver, and to hear dear silly worldly chatter that I grew terribly frivolous. Plates were laid for twenty, and who do you suppose was on my right? The severe young purser who was on the steamer I came over in! His ship is coaling ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... leaving—young, eager-faced fellows, with a scattering of the usual "dancing" men on whom everybody could always count, and a few middle-aged gentlemen and women of the younger married set to give stability to what was, otherwise, a debutante's affair. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... pouting them artfully, while Harriet and the children chattered. Nina was full of excited anticipation. Francesca's tea to-morrow, and the box-party on Friday, and a new gown for each- Nina fancied herself already a popular and lovely debutante. Harriet imagined that she saw something of a brother's pity in Ward's eyes as he watched her. Ward himself looked his best in his evening black, and several years older than ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... buffo^, buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello^; pulcinello^, pulcinella^; extra, bit- player, walk-on role, cameo appearance; mute, figurante^, general utility; super, supernumerary. company; first tragedian, prima donna [Sp.], protagonist; jeune premier [Fr.]; debutant, debutante [Fr.]; light comedian, genteel comedian, low comedian; walking gentleman, amoroso^, heavy father, ingenue [Fr.], jeune veuve [Fr.]. mummer, guiser^, guisard^, gysart^, masque. mountebank, Jack Pudding; tumbler, posture master, acrobat; contortionist; ballet dancer, ballet girl; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... A debutante, as beautiful as she was clever, was drawing the entire capital to the Comedie Francaise. She obtained especial applause in the difficult part of Phedre. My friends spoke marvels of it, and wished to take me there with them. Their ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... far-from-pretty word, followed. In some such procession they finally arrived at the beach. Isabelle stepped forth, shook her slim black self, ran up the beach and back like a colt, and joined Miss Watts, sedate as a debutante. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... look different—your gown is wonderfully becoming, and what lovely slippers!" Mrs. Plunkett inspected the aged debutante with kindly eyes. "But remember, my dear, we mustn't let frivolities like this divert our attention from the cause. A bit more of the good fight and we shall ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... flirtation. Mamma rarely had to pay for any of her own meals, except breakfast, and the economy with which she could order a breakfast was a real surprise to Mary. Mamma swam, motored, danced, walked, gossiped, played bridge, and golfed like any debutante. Mary, watching her, wondered sometimes if the father she had lost when a tiny baby, and the stepfather whose marriage to her mother, and death had followed only a few years later, were any more real to her mother than the dreams they ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... allowed her to wear her gold locket for the occasion, walked down the aisle and took her seat near the stage, feeling as conspicuous and self-conscious as any debutante entering a box ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... kiss, surreptitiously delivered, roused Cappy from his meditations. He opened his eyes and beheld his daughter Florence, a radiant debutante of twenty, and the sole prop of ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... evening, the hour between eight and nine was occupied with "manners." The girls took turns in coming gracefully downstairs, entering the drawing-room, announced by Claire du Bois in the role of footman, and shaking hands with their hostesses—Conny Wilder, as dowager mama, and towering above her, as debutante daughter, Irene McCullough, the biggest girl in the school. The gymnasium teacher who assigned the roles, had a sense of humor. An appropriate remark was expected from each ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... her cousin's plan in her behalf she was half wild with delight. "I may consider myself a debutante," she said. "Oh, Cousin Sophy! how shall ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... She's had a gay winter so far, but not a happy one. She's no debutante any more, you know; she's an 'old girl' in her fifth season. That's what the society girls get by coming out at eighteen. Now I, who am only a year out of college and who never 'came out' in my life, am as keen at the game of being grown up as if I were just putting ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... girl, gay, sparkling, witty, brilliant, temperamental; busily enjoying every minute of life; clad always in the most down-to-the-moment styles. He imagined her as popular, colorful, a wonderful companion for a happy, festive mood; a street that looked upon her companion streets as a debutante looks upon ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... thought in many girls' heads would have been: "Here's an end of my good times before they've begun!" but I'm sure there was no place in Pat's mind for her own grievances. I fancied that she'd even forgotten those dresses for the debutante who might now never "debut," and the birthday car which might appropriately be named the "White Elephant." Indeed I hoped she would forget, so that Jack might pay the duty and escape protests or gratitude. But the girl had a more practical side to her nature than I'd supposed. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... a black one, and why thrill over blue eyes and neglect the brown ones? What is the rationale for the admiration of slimness as against stoutness? Indeed, there are races who would turn with scorn from our slender debutante[1] and worship their more buxom heavy-busted and wide-hipped beauties. The only "rational" beauty in face and figure is that which stands as the outer mask of health, vigor, intelligence and normal procreative function. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... too, that I was disappointed in the appearance of the women in the shopping crowds on Broad Street; for, as every one knows, Richmond has been famous for its beauties. In vain I looked for young women fitted to inherit the debutante mantles of such nationally celebrated beauties as Miss Irene Langhorne (Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson), Miss May Handy (Mrs. James Brown Potter), Miss Lizzie Bridges (Mrs. Hobson), and Miss Sally Bruce (Mrs. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... masculine traits and marks, for the normal feminine psyche is submissive rather than aggressive toward its environment, human and otherwise. Belonging to a family in the highest circles, it was upon the table d'hote of her destiny that she should become a regulation debutante, careeristina, and successful wife and mother. Instead, she chose to question the whole routine of the life of her class, and in her diary she records her doubts and cravings, and her revolt against ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... exhilarants that nullify caution, warning the presence of danger. The boy with his first pay envelope, the lover who has just been accepted, the debutante on the way to her first ball; the impetus that urges us to rush in where ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... mannish Carew girl, amusingly called them. Among them Arthur Colton, married only a year, who already boasted that he was living "the simple double life." Besides the Laidlaws there were the Walsenberg woman, twice a grass widow and still hopeful, and the Da Costa debutante who looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, giggled constantly and said things which she fondly hoped to be devilish, but which were only absurd. This was the girl, I think, whom Jerry had described as having only five adjectives, all of which she used ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... free for the past month or two, and watching this pretty debutante of love going from table to table, I asked myself the question whether it would not be worth my while to make a bargain with her to live with me for some time. I am here relating to you one of those ordinary adventures which occur every ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... business to the extent of being in the store almost every day, as her husband had been before her, to advise and be available for consultation, whether it was the buying of a gold teething ring for the newest member of the family, an engagement ring for the latest debutante, a watch for "son," attaining his majority, or perhaps new gold glasses for grandpapa ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... increased as she drove towards Coombe. It was complicated by a feeling of shyness. To herself she said that she was like an old debutante. She had been out of the world for so long, and now she was venturing once more among the merciless women of the world that never rests from amusing itself, from watching the lives of others, from gossiping about them, from laughing at them. She had been a leader of this world until ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... that particularly delicious kind (whose name we forget) that is the palest possible cream color—almost white. We have seen apples of strange shapes, something like a pear (sheepnoses, they call them), and the Maiden Blush apples with their delicate shading of yellow and debutante pink. And what a poetry in the names—Winesap, Pippin, Northern Spy, Baldwin, Ben Davis, York Imperial, Wolf River, Jonathan, Smokehouse, Summer Rambo, Rome Beauty, Golden Grimes, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... goddess, but Circe, masquerading at the dance given in honour of the fair debutante, Summer, puts the kibosh on ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... be disconcerted by any novel social situation. She had witnessed so many situations and such complicated ones that the merely conventional were, in her eyes, relatively insignificant and irrevelant. There would be for her none of the debutante's sense of awkwardness or insufficiency. Again she reminded him of the rustic little princess, unaware of alien customs, and ready to learn and to laugh at ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... office, Mr. Daney noted her debutante slouch and gritted his teeth. "Wonder if they'll call on Nan now, or make a combined attack on the boy and try bluff and threats and ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... The other part is the night-life—not the night-life of gambling saloons and their kind: of that dark underground existence Society has no knowledge, though he who left it at daybreak and will go back to it at midnight clasps the last debutante in his arms and whirls with her to the sweet waltz-music—but the night-life ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... for years, you know, and the women over there are doing all the men's work and getting better wages at it than the men ever did. After the war they'll never go back to their tatting and prattle. I'm going to your shipyard and have a look-in, but not the way a pink debutante follows a naval officer over a battle-ship, staring at him and not at the works. I'm going on business, and if I like ship-building, I may ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... such, is that when we most admired Mr. Blake we also again admired Miss Mary Taylor; and it was at Brougham's, not at Burton's, that we rendered her that tribute—reserved for her performance of the fond theatrical daughter in the English version of Le Pere de la Debutante, where I see the charming panting dark-haired creature, in flowing white classically relieved by a gold tiara and a golden scarf, rush back from the supposed stage to the represented green-room, followed by thunders of applause, and throw herself upon the neck of the broken-down old gentleman ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... bustled in upon my speculation, but as usual I was compelled to wait for the talk I wanted. For some moments she would be only the tired owner of the Arrowhead Ranch—in the tea gown of a debutante and with too much powder on one side of her nose—and she must have at least one cup of tea so corrosive that the Scotch whiskey she adds to it is but a merciful dilution. She now drank eagerly of the fearful brew, dulled the bite ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... who was present, says: "The night was rendered memorable, not only by the massacre attending the general execution, but also by the debut of Mlle. Lind in this country, who appeared as Alice. With the exception of the debutante, such a disgraceful exhibition was never before witnessed on the operatic stage. Mendelssohn was sitting in the stalls, and at the end of the third act, unable to bear any longer the executive infliction, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... delighted. The parents of several young women who had taken part in his amateur theatricals had been concerned for their daughters' safety. And now Phil interested him—this new Phil in city clothes. The antics of Phil, the tomboy of Main Street, had frequently aroused his indignation; Phil, a debutante in an evening gown that he pronounced a creation of the gods, was worthy of serious attention. She was, he averred, Hermione, Rosalind, Portia, Beatrice, combined in one ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... frivolous, pampered self!" cried the girl. "I'm no longer a silly debutante, papa. I've lived the grim hard realities of life—there on that dreadful ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... purpose in his mind, he had married a daughter of this class, whose only dower was her birth, and whose only covetable possession her place among her kind. And this effort had failed, entirely. Sophia Blashkov, a quiet, gentle, blue-blooded, little debutante, had found herself utterly unequal to the task either of forcing a place in those glittering, scornful ranks for her black-blooded, much-condemned husband, or of keeping her own, now that she bore his name. True, her marriage had, probably, made possible ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... debutante year had been marred by the only unhappy experience of her life—the disgrace of her brother and his leaving home. She dated the beginning of a certain thoughtful habit of mind from that time, and a dissatisfaction with the brilliant life society offered her. The change had been so gradual ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... Programs Dinner Dances Dressing Rooms The Dance When the Lady is Asked to Dance "Cutting In" Dancing Positions When the Guest Does Not Dance Public Dances A Plea for Dancing The Charm of Dress in Dancing At the Afternoon Dance Gentlemen at the Dance Dress for the Ball Dress of the Debutante Wraps at the Ball Ball Dress for Men For ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... between fourteen and eighteen, Mrs. Emery laid her plans and arranged her life with a fervent devotion to one end—the success of Lydia's first season in society. Every room in the house seemed to her vision to stand in a bright vacancy awaiting the arrival of the debutante. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... the morning issues, if you are going to mention any. In to-morrow's Star there will be a portrait of Edyth four columns wide and eight inches high. I'll expect such expressions as 'beautiful society girl,' 'a recent debutante,' 'heiress to the vast fortune of the late structural steel king,' 'charming manner and brilliant mind.' And at those odd times when they are not praising her gowns, her wealth or her good looks, they'll be rather worse than insinuating that she knows all about the crime—if she ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... side street. Her mother had been her only teacher, and the men and women found in the books of her father's library her only companions. Mary Lee was a sociable creature; she longed for the companionship of girls of her own age. To be a debutante, to have the seasons filled with a round of visiting and receiving, to meet brilliant people, and to number one's friends by the score—this to her simple little heart ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston

... other to make his bachelor days memorable to a host of friends, he wound up by marrying one of England's fairest women, our great actress, Kate Terry. It was in those early days that Ellen, the debutante, was introduced to the dramatic world as "Kate Terry's sister." Since then Kate, having elected to rest on her laurels, is proud to be referred to by the younger generation ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles

... or two dances during the week—a thing he had not done lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of debutante theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after several months' irresponsible ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... tall and beautiful, not merely because such physical gifts added to the colour and agreeableness of life, but because hers gave comfort and happiness to her mother. To Mrs. Vanderpoel, to introduce to the world the loveliest debutante of many years was to be launched into a new future. To concern one's self about her exquisite wardrobe was to have an enlivening occupation. To see her surrounded, to watch eyes as they followed ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of a debutante was an event, and its announcement brought out a large crowd; the presumption of a provincial artist in selecting a role in which to rival a great favorite had excited general ridicule, and an unusually large audience had assembled, expecting to witness an ignominious failure. Mlle. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... attractive Debutante knew two Young Men who called on her every Thursday Evening, and ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... client has placed her piteous case in my hands. It is the Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful debutante of last season. She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt. This fiend has several imprudent letters—imprudent, Watson, nothing worse—which were written to an impecunious young squire in the country. They would ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... gags. We plan to kid the pants off this spaceman business, until those bright boys in the glass hats cry uncle. I've already lined up James Hocum for the top banana, and Sylvia Crowe for the female lead. You know Sylvia, Tom; she'll make space flight sound about as chic as a debutante's ball on the Staten Island Ferry. This is the way to do the job, ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis

... wonderful—" Miss Snow breathed, "I'm a debutante, you know, and I have scarcely butterflied out of my chrysalis yet. How splendid the Leathershams are. He has a heart of gold. Oh, he is such a good man, he says his life motto is the Golden Rule." "And ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells

... women of the court who had been pleased to show their patronage by attendance, did not in the least eclipse her own less pretentious self. People besieged Madame Dulac for introductions, and to her own surprise the debutante found herself enjoying all the gay nothings, the jests, the bright sentences tossed about her and forming a foundation for compliments delicately veiled, and the flattering by word or glance that was as the breath of life to ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan



Words linked to "Debutante" :   woman, adult female



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