grande

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹɑndeɪ/, /ˈɡɹændeɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑndeɪ, -ændeɪ

Adjective

grande (not comparable)

1. (chiefly US) Of a cup of coffee: smaller than venti but larger than tall, usually 16 ounces (~ 455 ml).

   Coordinate terms: tall, venti

Noun

grande (plural grandes)

1. (chiefly US) A grande cup of coffee.
   • 1997, J. H. Marks, Conspiracy Theory, Signet, →ISBN, page 148:

     As she went to work the only concern prominent in her mind was a strong desire for a couple of grandes from Starbucks.

   • 1998, Doug Guinan, California Screaming, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 287:

     Kevin considered bumming a cig, but he doubted any of them would part with one. Clutching their Starbucks grandes, guarding their garment bags with practiced eyes—how much sympathy could they be expected to muster?

   • 1999, Elizabeth Lenhard, Bettypalooza, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 80:

     “Harrumph,” Daddy said, flipping through the morning’s deliveries – the L.A. Times, the New York Times and two grandes from Starbucks: decaf Colombian for my stressed superior, and a nonfat capp with a double espresso shot for me.

Noun

grande (plural grandes)

1. Alternative form of grandee.
   • 1847, T[erence] M[cMahon] Hughes, “Hercules Rafferty.—An Asturianillo.—An Irish stew.—A Bottle-Hero.—Don Tito de Chiclana.—O’Gorman.—Perils of love-making in the Peninsula.” (chapter VI), in An Overland Journey to Lisbon at the Close of 1846; with a Picture of the Actual State of Spain and Portugal, volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 89:

     Console yourself with the practical philosophy of our countryman, Private Curtis, who was the picture of a Spanish Grande of the first class, and whom I once heard after a Lenten dinner extemporize with great good-humour this Leonine distich:⁠—“Quod deficit in ferculis / Supplebitur in poculis!”

   • 1912, Tiemen De Vries, Dutch History, Art and Literature for Americans: Lectures Given in the University of Chicago, Eerdmans-Sevensma Company, pages 85–86:

     When we read in almost every book in which the life of Philip is described that he was a man of haughty character with an aversion to every vulgarity; when we read of his ability in courting ladies, his manly beauty, his fine dress as a Spanish grande, we incline to think that before us stands a nobleman of kindred feelings, of carefully fostered nobility.

   • 1936 November 17, The New York Times Theater Reviews, pages 15–16:

     With the exception of the vital Otto Woegerer as Juan, a Spanish grande, equally quick to draw his rapier against Hamlet as to appear a mystically presaging friend, the rest of the large cast fills its space with satisfactory competence.

   • 1943, National Academy of Design Exhibition Record, 1826-1860, page 73:

     339. Portrait of a Spanish Grande.

   • 1952, German Review, page 19:

     Else, how could it be that a little Miss Mischief dresses up as a homely little Dutch farm girl, an awkward and uncouth youth parades in the costume and with the air of a Spanish grande, the respectable, quiet housewife becomes a sailor’s sweetheart, a little boy flirt assumes the detached air of a high priest a painstaking bookkeeper masquerades as a hold-up man or a bank robber with a record as a policeman?

   • 1966, Paul Bailey, The Claws of the Hawk: The Incredible Life of Wahker the Ute, Westernlore, →LCCN, page 90:

     Already you’re dressed like a Spanish grande, b’ God!

   • 1972, Helmut Anthony Hatzfeld, The Rococo: Eroticism, Wit, and Elegance in European Literature (Pegasus Movements in Literature Series), Pegasus, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 108:

     The two plays were originally sketched with a French milieu, but after Voltaire’s revolutionary pamphlet Le Droit du seigneur (1762) it seemed safer to invent a Spanish grande and his castle Aguas Frescas—the more alluring to Beaumarchais as he knew the milieu well from his stay of eleven months in Spain.

   • 1993, Eva Šormová, editor, Don Juan and Faust in the XXth Century: Theatre Conference, 27.9. - 1.10.1991, Prague, Charles University, →ISBN, page 274:

     So the attempt to seduce Zerlina freezes not only in the cold and monumental architecture of a black marble environment and in the stiff “overstyled” costuming, but also in the unresolvable, impossible role-conflict of a Spanish Grande trying to reach for something like John Wayne’s sex appeal.

   • 1993, Sue Rich, Rawhide and Roses, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 229:

     From where they were, Hayden thought, it resembled the type of house a Spanish Grande might live in, neat, clean, with gentle arches framing the front portico.

   • 1996, Mozart Studien, volume 6, page 277:

     The essence of the opera’s entire plot is revealed in just 28 measures: in this first musical number here, »a Spanish grande, fallen in love with a young girl, endeavours to seduce her«.

   • 2000, P. C. Morantte, Brother to the Wind, New Day Publishers, →ISBN, page 45:

     Those that you see on Calle Real are owned by a Spanish grande who has a large coconut plantation.

   • 2004, Irene Awret, “Part One: Berlin”, in They’ll Have to Catch Me First: An Artist’s Coming of Age in the Third Reich, Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 36:

     Was it Uncle Richard’s fault that he looked like a Spanish Grande, that women rarely could resist his melancholy brown eyes smoldering with an indefinable something?

   • 2007, Koenraad Jonckheere, Adriaen Thomasz. Key (c. 1545–c. 1589): Portrait of a Calvinist Painter, Brepols, →ISBN, page 152:

     D18. Portrait of a Spanish grande

   • 2007, Karina Urbach, editor, European Aristocracies and the Radical Right 1918–1939, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 63:

     This son, James Fritz-James, was created a Spanish Grande and Duke of Liria by Philip V.

   • 2014, Peter de Vos, Confusion (Nothing Is What It Seems; 1), Kibworth Beauchamp, Leics: Matador, →ISBN, page 5:

     Gone was the affable behaviour of a loose-living playboy, replaced by the tough manners of a hard-working Chinese with the airs of a Spanish Grande.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹænd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ænd

Adjective

grande (comparative more grande, superlative most grande)

1. Alternative form of grand
   • 1972, Russell Sage College, Studies in the Twentieth Century, page 79:

     Almost symbolically, Lopahin still plays the peasant and Lyubov the grande mistress.

   • 1993, Donald S. Metz, Madame President, New Saga Publishers, →ISBN, pages 147, 270:

     A supremely happy family waved goodbye to an elderly grande dame and a namesake who had just enrolled in her first lesson in becoming a grande lady. […] In Litchfield, Connecticut, the Hutchinson brothers rushed to tell the grande old dame her daughter was making history.

   • 1997, Alzina Stone Dale, Mystery Reader’s Walking Guide: New York, →ISBN, page 217:

     In Shannon O’Cork’s The Murder of Muriel Lake, which is about a Writers of Mystery Convention (aka MWA?), grande mistress Muriel Lake was murdered.

   • 2011, Richard Allen Brooks, “Dame Johnson”, in From Life to Death, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 28:

     THIS GRANDE LADY IS
     DIS-TIN-GUISH-A-BLE IN HER
     DEMURE DELIVERIES.
     DELIGHTFUL AND DAZZLING,
     THE LADY IS DEFINITELY
     A DIVA.

   • 2013, Chet Belmonte, Meadowdale: A Saga of Confinement, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 223:

     That made eight deaths in a matter of a few days—all of them tied inexplicably to this “grande lady” herself—Meadowdale Prison.

   • 2016, Victor Milán, The Dinosaur Knights, Tor Books, →ISBN, page 101:

     Her silence now had the quality of the comfortable silences between friends, not the half-respectful, half-fearful types of a servant not spoken to by her grande mistress.

   • 2016, Jennie Gilbert Ross, The Wrong Side of the Blanket, Archway Publishing, →ISBN:

     Annabella Kristina Ramona Toaltz was a grande name for a grande woman.

Related terms

Noun

grande c (singular definite granden, plural indefinite grander)

1. grandee

Noun

grande c (singular definite granden, plural indefinite grander)

1. (archaic) neighbour

Usage notes

• The apocopic form gran may be used before singular nouns that start with a consonant. Before singular nouns that start with an impure s, using the apocopic form is ungrammatical but often used in spoken language. Before nouns that start with a vowel, grande can be elided by use of an apostrophe.