soubrette
Americannoun
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a maidservant or lady's maid in a play, opera, or the like, especially one displaying coquetry, pertness, and a tendency to engage in intrigue.
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an actress playing such a role.
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any lively or pert young woman.
noun
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a minor female role in comedy, often that of a pert lady's maid
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any pert or flirtatious girl
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of soubrette
1745–55; < French: lady's maid < Provençal soubreto, derivative of soubret affected, ultimately derivative of Old Provençal sobrar < Latin superāre to be above
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.
The soubrette Zerlina is also a lot fancier—García’s daughter Maria Malibran, then 18 but already a superstar, sang the role in 1826.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
At the Milwaukee Rep, I did a play called “Cat Among the Pigeons,” which is a Feydeau farce, and I played the ingénue in that, or the soubrette.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 15, 2019
Discovered by Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, Zsa Zsa took a soubrette role in the operetta The Singing Dream before coming to the U.S. in the 1940s.
From Time ● Dec. 18, 2016
Grande, like many teen aspirants to Broadway, trained as a belter, a more natural fit for her voice than the R&B soubrette she hadn’t quite grown into.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2014
The other lady of the ensemble, a svelte twilight soubrette, objects to my having, so to speak, photographed her in her old housecoat.
From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger
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.
