bacchante

American  

[buh-kan-tee, -kahn-, buh-kant, -kahnt] / bəˈkæn ti, -ˈkɑn-, bəˈkænt, -ˈkɑnt /

noun

1. a female bacchant.

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bacchante British  

/ bəˈkæntɪ /

noun

1. a priestess or female votary of Bacchus

2. a drunken female reveller

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Etymology

Origin of bacchante

1790–1800; back formation from Latin bacchantēs, feminine plural of bacchāns bacchant; pronunciation with silent -e < French bacchante, feminine of bacchant bacchant

Example Sentences

In Paris she became a pupil, later a good friend of aging Auguste Rodin, won her first real fame with a bronze of Anna Pavlova as a dancing bacchante.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Like a bacchante after libations," she would stumble along, "nose and . . . forehead covered with yellow pollen, her hair in disorder and full of twigs, a bump here and a scratch there."

From Time Magazine Archive

"The computer has enshrined statistics," says M.I.T.'s Professor Harold A. "This is not a love-in," squawked a pimply bacchante, "it's a cash-in."

From Time Magazine Archive

Beatrice, like a bacchante, had bound her brows with vine leaves one of which Charles now broke off and handed to the competing minstrel.

From Romance of Roman Villas (The Renaissance) by Champney, Elizabeth W. (Elizabeth Williams)

Her eyes a-kindle, her hair flying, she showed you a bewitching bacchante; then, all of a sudden, her face expressed grief, and you saw a magnificent repentant Magdalen.

From The Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun by Vigée-Lebrun, Marie Louise Elisabeth