raconteuse

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French raconteuse.

Noun

raconteuse (plural raconteuses)

1. A female storyteller.
   • 1978, William Peter Archibald, Social psychology as political economy, page 229:

     There is a fascinating passage in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing where four Canadians on their way up a river in the wilderness come upon a heron someone preceding them has killed and strung from a tree. Having surveyed its disgusting remains, the raconteuse asks herself "Why had they strung it up like a lynch victim, why didn't they just throw it away like the trash?"

   • 2012, Tom Edwards, Tom:

     Tom's mother was a superb raconteuse with the enviable gift of painting a verbal canvas of enchanting colours, transporting her audience into a realm of her own making that invariably enhanced the core of the tale.

   • 2012, William Penn, Love in the Time of Flowers, →ISBN, page 51:

     So, Shasta had reflected at once, Aunt Lily, by acclamation the family raconteuse, had certainly piqued her concern and puzzlement, if not exactly her surprise.

Anagrams

• countersea, nectareous

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

raconteuse f (plural raconteuses)

1. female equivalent of raconteur

Further reading

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