Bessie
Americannoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She stuck with rural carnival and black-oriented theater settings for her appearances, and stayed South, never focusing on the big Northern cities and venues as Bessie Smith did.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
Baxter's younger sister, Alice Dale, became an actor and writer based in Australia and it is clear Bessie was a big influence on both.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2025
As the Woodstone mansion’s resident Prohibition-era jazz singer, Pinnock drew inspiration from the likes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith for the overt confidence of her brassy, flamboyant character.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
Quite a few of you introduced me to artists I’d never heard before, like the British singer-songwriter Labi Siffre, the Los Angeles punk band the Brat and the underrated North Carolina-born soul singer Bessie Banks.
From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2024
Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour’s length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
