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

Anderson has inscribed a billet-doux to The New Yorker in its mid-20th-century glory years that is, at the same time, an ardent, almost orgiastic paean to the pleasures of print.

From New York Times • Oct. 20, 2021

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

From Washington Post • Aug. 6, 2021

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 • Apr. 24, 2017

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 • Feb. 21, 2013

I soon gathered that the scrutiny Fanny's note had undergone in the library, was the moving cause of this sudden resuscitation of defunct billet-doux and forgotten cards.

From The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion or, Familiar Letters to his Nephews by Lunettes, Henry