barrette

See also: Barrette

English

Alternative forms

• barette

Etymology

Borrowed from French barrette, from barre (“bar”) ‎ -ette, literally “small bar”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bəˈɹɛt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

barrette (plural barrettes)

1. A clasp or clip for gathering and holding the hair.
   • 1960, John Updike, 'Rabbit, Run', page 30:

     Growing sleepy, Rabbit stops before midnight at a roadside café for coffee. Somehow, though he can't put his finger on the difference, he is unlike the other customers. They sense it too, and look at him with hard eyes, eyes like little metal studs pinned into the white faces of young men sitting in zippered jackets in booths three to a girl, the girls with orange hair hanging like wiggly seaweed or loosely bound with gold barrettes like pirate treasure.

2. (entomology) Synonym of katepimeron.

Synonyms

• hair clip
• hairclip
• hair-slide
• hairslide

Translations

clasp or clip for gathering and holding the hair — see also hair clip

• Catalan: agulla de clenxa f, pinça de cabells f
• Finnish: hiussolki (fi)
• German: Haarspange (de) f, Haarklammer f
• Irish: fáisceán gruaige m
• Japanese: バレッタ (ja) (baretta)
• Macedonian: шно́ла f (šnóla), фурке́та f (furkéta)
• Portuguese: prendedor de cabelo m
• Russian: зако́лка (ru) f (zakólka)
• Spanish: prendedor de pelo m, prendedor m, pinche (es) m (Chile)
• Swedish: hårspänne (sv) n

See also

• hairpin

Verb

barrette (third-person singular simple present barrettes, present participle barretting, simple past and past participle barretted)

1. (transitive) To put (hair) into a barrette.
   • 2004, Glen Duncan, Death of an Ordinary Man‎^[1], →ISBN:

     The standing woman is overweight, with scraped-back and barretted bleach- blond hair and a jowly face of detonated capillaries.

   • 2007, Rachel Kadish, Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story‎^[2], →ISBN, page 219:

     With her barretted white hair, blue eyes, and deep green sweater, Victoria is as perfectly put together as ever.

   • 2010, Linda Lonsdorf, Family Threat‎^[3], →ISBN, page 267:

     She pulled her long hair up and barretted it so that her long exotic earrings put the finishing touch to her exquisite appearance.

Anagrams

• batterer, berretta

French

Etymology 1

From barre ‎ -ette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.ʁɛt/ ~ /bɑ.ʁɛt/

Noun

barrette f (plural barrettes)

1. small bar
2. barrette (US), (hair) slide (UK)
3. brooch
4. bar (of medal)
5. (colloquial) bar/slab of hash

Descendants

• → English: barrette
• → Turkish: baret

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Italian barretta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.ʁɛt/

Noun

barrette f (plural barrettes)

1. (religion) biretta

Descendants

• → Portuguese: barrete

Further reading

• “barrette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Noun

barrette f

1. plural of barretta

Anagrams

• berretta