ballerina
[bal-uh-ree-nuh]
- a principal female dancer in a ballet company.Compare prima ballerina.
- any female ballet dancer.
- a woman's very low-heeled or heelless shoe or slipper, made to resemble a ballet slipper.
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Compare ballet slipper.
Origin of ballerina
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for ballerina
Contemporary Examples
Not necessarily having a big fat ass, because ballerina bodies are in.
#ButtSchool - How Porn Stars Work Out: Pop Physique Promises the Perfect DerriereAurora Snow
August 23, 2014
He was bisexual and a ballerina, and this was while I was at the Atlantic Theater Company in Vermont.
Jessica Alba on 'Sin City,' Typecasting, and How Homophobia Pushed Her Away From the ChurchMarlow Stern
August 18, 2014
After seeing Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova perform in Cairo, Iolas knew he wanted to be an artiste.
Like the gymnast and the ballerina, the distance runner is often defined by drive and compulsion.
Are Female Long-Distance Runners More Prone To Suicidal Depression?Emily de la Bruyere
February 3, 2014
Vin Baker Baker was one of those big men who moved like a ballerina.
Historical Examples
A duke sent me an invitation to take supper with him, as if I were a ballerina!
The Lure of the MaskHarold MacGrath
Yes; that is her stepmother—the stepmother of the ballerina.
Warren Commission (9 of 26): Hearings Vol. IX (of 15)The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
It might have been the cell where years ago a Ballerina was immured for a wrong step.
CarnivalCompton Mackenzie
"She looks half like a Madonna and half like a ballerina," she said.
Roderick HudsonHenry James
There was something of the ballerina in her temperament, also, which she never entirely outgrew.
Memoirs of an American Prima DonnaClara Louise Kellogg
ballerina
- a female ballet dancer
- US the principal female dancer of a ballet company
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Word Origin
C18: from Italian, feminine of ballerino dancing master, from ballare to dance, from Late Latin ballāre : see ball ²
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
Word Origin and History for ballerina
n.
1792, from Italian ballerina, literally "dancing girl," fem. of ballerino "dancer," from ballo "a dance" (see ball (n.2)). The Italian plural form ballerine formerly sometimes was used in English.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
ballerina
In ballet, a female dancer. (See prima ballerina.)
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.