Billet-doux
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A love letter.
""O heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter."
Example
More examples""O heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter."
Etymology
Borrowed from French billet doux (literally “sweet note”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.