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

"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

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

"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

"You are too respectable for a bacchante, too vivacious for anything else."

From Through stained glass by Chamberlain, George Agnew

She had the thoughtful brow and the words of wisdom for one class; the smile of the cupid and the laugh of the bacchante for another.

From In Both Worlds by Holcombe, William Henry