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

"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

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

But what struck me most was the dress, which even to the powder was like that of my father's bacchante.

From Abb? Aubain and Mosaics by M?rim?e, Prosper

I held in my arms a superb danseuse from an Italian theater who had come to Paris for the carnival; she wore the costume of a bacchante, with a dress of panther's skin.

From The Confession of a Child of the Century by Warren, Kendall