Zephyrette
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A type of light, crisp cracker, used primarily for some hors d'oeuvres.
"Spread zephyrettes with quince jelly and sprinkle with chopped English walnut meat. Place a zephyrette over each and press together."
- 2 An on-board hostess on the California Zephyr train, which originally operated between 1949 and 1970. historical
"The Zephyrette then takes the reservations of the Pullman passengers."
- 3 A daughter of Aeolus; a tiny female spirit of the wind.
"The storm, however, subsided ; and subsequently I discovered, upon music and the opera becoming the topics of conversation, that Mr. Nobody rivalled Paganini on the violin ; and believed that his lady danced better than the zephyrette, Taglioni; and that Herz, Hummel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Weber, were, in comparison, beaten hollow by one of his little sisters."
- 4 A lightweight print fabric used for women's dresses.
"I'm going to select one of those beautiful fast-color Zephyrette patterns for my 'prize' dress."
Example
More examples"Spread zephyrettes with quince jelly and sprinkle with chopped English walnut meat. Place a zephyrette over each and press together."
Etymology
From zephyr + -ette.
From zephyr (“light wind from the west”) + -ette (suffix forming nouns meaning the female equivalent of something). Zephyr is derived from Latin zephyrus, Zephyrus (“personification of the west wind”), from Ancient Greek Ζέφῠρος (Zéphŭros, “personification of the west wind”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃yebʰ- (“to enter, penetrate; to copulate”). Sense 1 (“on-board hostess”) is derived from the California Zephyr train.
Related phrases
More for "zephyrette"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.