billet-doux

American  

[bil-ey-doo, bil-ee-, bee-yey-doo] / ˈbɪl eɪˈdu, ˈbɪl i-, bi yeɪˈdu /

noun

plural

billets-doux

1. a love letter.

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billet-doux British  

/ bijɛdu, ˌbɪlɪˈduː /

noun

1. old-fashioned a love letter

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Etymology

Origin of billet-doux

1665–75; < French: literally, sweet note. See billet ¹, douce

Example Sentences

“Wayward” is a billet-doux to that city, where Spiotta teaches at Syracuse University’s creative writing program.

From Washington Post

Nine years later, Melville assigned himself a far weightier role, as a journalist, in “Two Men in Manhattan,” his billet-doux to New York, complete with a suitably blowsy score.

From The New Yorker

Homicide: Life on the Street was a classy, multi-layered procedural, The Wire was widely regarded as a masterpiece and Treme has won rave reviews for its post-Katrina New Orleans billet-doux.

From The Guardian

Bodinetz's production, jointly presented with English Touring Theatre, is refreshingly rococo – it's almost a novelty to witness a set of Molière characters corresponding through billet-doux rather than by text message.

From The Guardian

For instance, when you are about to send a billet-doux, or love letter to a fair friend, you must only think of what you would say to her if you were both together, and then write it; that renders the style easy and natural; though some people imagine the wording of a letter to be a great undertaking, and think they must write abundantly better than they talk, which is not at all necessary.

From Project Gutenberg