madeleine
[mad-l-in, mad-l-eyn; French maduh-len]
- a small shell-shaped cake made of flour, eggs, sugar, and butter and baked in a mold.
- something that triggers memories or nostalgia: in allusion to a nostalgic passage in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.
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Origin of madeleine
1835–45; < French, earlier gâteau à la Madeleine, after the female given name; the attribution of the recipe to an 18th-century cook named Madeleine Pau(l)mier is unsubstantiated
Madeleine
[mad-l-in, -lahyn; French maduh-len]
- a female given name, form of Magdalene.
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Also Mad·e·laine, Mad·e·lene [mad-l-in] /ˈmæd l ɪn/, Mad·e·line, Mad·e·lyn.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for madeleine
Contemporary Examples
Early in her career, she and designer Madeleine Vionnet sued a woman in Paris for copying some 20,000 sketches of their designs.
Normally I might look to Samantha Power or Madeleine Albright or Hillary Clinton for foreign policy wisdom.
Despite the fact that her husband had left France four years earlier, Madeleine had recently given birth to a healthy baby boy.
Several people at the resort had seen a man carrying a small bundled child on the night Madeleine disappeared.
Investigation Into Madeleine McCann Disappearance Reopened in PortugalBarbie Latza Nadeau
October 24, 2013
Key to the new timeline is a more precise window in which Madeleine most likely disappeared.
Historical Examples
He had as good a right to go into the Madeleine as the next man.
The Incomplete AmoristE. Nesbit
It was followed by Madeleine Ferat, which, however, was less fortunate.
A Zola DictionaryJ. G. Patterson
And it was again a daughter, Madeleine, who came at the expiration of those two years.
FruitfulnessEmile Zola
Neither the marquis nor Madeleine had the courage to raise the cover.
The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2)Alexandre Dumas pre
Madeleine uttered a loud cry and sank unconscious to the floor.
The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2)Alexandre Dumas pre
madeleine
- a small fancy sponge cake
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Word Origin
C19: perhaps after Madeleine Paulmier, French pastry cook
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 madeleine
Madeleine
fem. proper name, variation of Madeline. The kind of small, rich confection is attested from 1845, said in OED to be named for Madeleine Paulmier, 19c. French pastry cook; any use with a sense of "small thing that evokes powerful nostalgia" is due to Proust (1922).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper