30 April 2018
billet-doux
[bil-ey-doo, bil-ee-; French bee-yey-doo]
noun, plural billets-doux [bil-ey-dooz, bil-ee-; French bee-yey-doo] (Show IPA)
1. a love letter.
Origin of billet-doux
1665-1675; < French: literally, sweet note. See billet1, douce
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for billet-doux
Historical Examples
He summoned me into his study, where I saw my billet-doux lying on the table.
Tom, Dick and Harry
Talbot Baines Reed
A papal excommunication is a billet-doux compared to the Commination of Jugana.
The Lock And Key Library
Various
Excuse me, Mr. Coates, I must have a peep at her ladyship’s billet-doux.
Rookwood
William Harrison Ainsworth
They receive a challenge like a ” billet-doux,” and a home-thrust as a favour.
Thackerayana
William Makepeace Thackeray
Twenty to seven,—seven oclock they were due at the billet-doux.
Twos and Threes
G. B. Stern
It cannot be that Belinda then saw for the first time a billet-doux.
The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2 (of 10)
Alexander Pope
Oh, you have not heard of the billet-doux that Schwarzfelder has written you?
In Hostile Red
Joseph Altsheler
“Why, then, you must swear the billet-doux miscarried,” answered the Duke.
Peveril of the Peak
Sir Walter Scott
He could not write a common answer to a dinner invitation without its assuming the tone of a billet-doux.
Art in England
Dutton Cook
Sir Philip was actually reading Miss Luttridge’s billet-doux aloud when the black entered the library.
Tales And Novels, Volume 3 (of 10)
Maria Edgeworth
Anagram
bled oil tux
diet bull ox
Today’s quote
Hatred unlocks no doors in heaven.
– William F. Devault
On this day
30 April – International Jazz Day.
30 April – Walpurgis Night (also called Hexennacht – which translates as Witches Night), held on the eve of St Walpurga’s Feast Day. In Germany it’s reputedly the night when witches celebrate the coming of the Spring (which occurs on 1 May) on the Brocken (the highest peak in Northern Germany). Heavy metal band, Black Sabbath, originally named one of their songs Walpurgis, but were told by their record company that it wasn’t acceptable because of the connation with Satanism, so the song was renamed War Pigs, although the lyrics remained the same. Sabbath’s bassist, Geezer Butler said of the song, ‘Walpurgis is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan. It wasn’t about politics or government or anything. It was [about] evil. So I was saying ‘generals gathered in the masses / just like witches at black masses’ to make an analogy‘.
30 April 1945 – German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, commit suicide in a bunker in Germany. Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany since 2 August 1934. He was born in Austria on 20 April 1889.
30 April 1975 – the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnamese civil war, when North Vietnamese tanks rumbled into Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, defeating the South Vietnamese army, United States military and her allies. The Fall was preceded by the largest helicopter evacuation in history, known as Operation Frequent Wind, in which 7,000 American military and civilians were evacuated. Weeks earlier, Operation Baby Lift had evacuated 2,000 orphan babies. Operation New Life evacuated 110,000 Vietnamese refugees. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese evacuated by land and sea. Following the communist take-over, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fled the country, resulting in a surge of refugees worldwide. 30 April and 1 May are celebrated in Vietnam as Liberation Day or Reunification Day. Those who fled refer to it as Black April.