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TETE-A-TETE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Small sofa that seats two people
Synonyms:
love seat; loveseat; tete-a-tete; vis-a-vis
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("tete-a-tete" is a kind of...):
couch; lounge; sofa (an upholstered seat for more than one person)
Derivation:
tete-a-tete (involving two persons; intimately private)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A private conversation between two people
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("tete-a-tete" is a kind of...):
conversation (the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc.)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tete-a-tete"):
pillow talk (intimate conversation between lovers (typically occurring in bed))
Derivation:
tete-a-tete (involving two persons; intimately private)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Involving two persons; intimately private
Example:
a head-to-head conversation
Synonyms:
head-to-head; tete-a-tete
Classified under:
Similar:
private (confined to particular persons or groups or providing privacy)
Derivation:
tete-a-tete (small sofa that seats two people)
tete-a-tete (a private conversation between two people)
Context examples:
Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally; so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them, and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a quarter of an hour's tete-a-tete with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
