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ridotto

American  
[ri-dot-oh] / rɪˈdɒt oʊ /

noun

  • ridottos
    plural
  1. a public ball or dance with music and often in masquerade, popular in the 18th century.


ridotto British  
/ rɪˈdɒtəʊ /

noun

  1. an entertainment with music and dancing, often in masquerade: popular in 18th-century England

"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

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of ridotto

1715–25; < Italian: retreat, resort; see redoubt


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.

See Examples For:

Thought slunk away like an unmasked guest at the ridotto.

From The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton

There is an opera and ridotto, and I know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours, "B. "

From Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 4 With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore

My dear Sir, WE came home from the ridotto so late, or rather so early that it was not possible for me to write.

From Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

He was awaiting Rotherby, with whom—as he told the company—he was for a frolic at Drury Lane, where a ridotto was following the play.

From The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini

On Monday we go to a ridotto, and on Wednesday we return to Howard Grove.

From Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

No ridottos were so gorgeous as those of Dublin; no equipages so sumptuous; no nobles so magnificently reckless.

From My Lords of Strogue, Vol. I (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Lewis Wingfield

Four months, in which there will be no routes, no shows, no ridottos; in which visits must be regulated by the weather, and assemblies will depend upon the moon!

From The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 03 The Rambler, Volume II by Samuel Johnson

Twice a-week there are to be ridottos, at guinea tickets, for which you are to have a supper and music.

From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1 by Peter Cunningham

Drums, routs, auctions, ridottos, and masquerades did not avail to keep their votaries abed.

From The Passionate Elopement by Compton MacKenzie

No novelist has described so well or so fully the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.

From A History of English Prose Fiction by Bayard Tuckerman

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