grande horizontale
English
Etymology
From French grande horizontale.
Noun
grande horizontale (plural grandes horizontales)
- A high-status prostitute; a courtesan.
- 1990, Angela Carter, ‘Barry Paris: Louise Brooks’, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage 2013, p. 477:
- The dedicated dancer, moved by some ‘inner vision’ that Martha Graham, for one, saw in her, was now well on the way to becoming a grande horizontale.
- 2014, Stephen Clarke, Dirty Bertie, p. 148:
- During at least one of his trips to Paris between 1867 and 1870, Bertie went to visit the grande horizontale La Païva at number 25, Champs Élysées, a magnificent building that has survived to the modern day and now houses a restaurant on its ground floor.
- 2015, Jane Shilling, The Telegraph, 7 December:
- For even the grandest of grandes horizontales, respectability was a luxury that remained tantalisingly out of reach.
- 1990, Angela Carter, ‘Barry Paris: Louise Brooks’, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage 2013, p. 477: