matinee
noun
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Soiree: A Fancy Evening Party
In English, soiree means “a fancy evening affair.” The word comes directly from French and was formed from the word soir, meaning “evening” or “night.” The French make a subtle distinction between soir, which refers explicitly to the time of day following sunset, and soirée, which refers to some duration of time, usually translated as “evening.” English speakers don’t use different words, but we understand the difference between “I’ll see you tomorrow evening” and “We spent the evening playing cards”—one refers to a time of day and one refers to the passage of time. From the idea of a period of time evolved the second meaning of soirée: a party that takes place during the evening. As is typical for words that have been borrowed from modern French, soiree in English signifies the fancy version of a simple “party”: an evening event that is formal or refined in some way.
A third sense of soirée in French, “an evening performance,” has a parallel with matinée, from matin “morning. ” Matinée literally means “morning performance” in French but has come to mean “daytime or afternoon performance” in English. The “evening performance” meaning of soirée has not been adopted by English. Our Unabridged of 1934, however, did record both a verb soiree (meaning, presumably, “to hold or attend an evening party”) and the variant swarry, “so spelled in mimicry of mispronunciation.”
Soiree can be spelled in English using the acute accent as soirée, but is usually spelled without it.
Examples of matinee in a Sentence
Madison E. Goldberg, People.com, 24 Apr. 2025
Seeing your kid perform on this stage. — Dylan Hunt, 13
Those same staffers helped to stage the final shows — one matinee and the grand evening performance, both on Friday.
—Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2025
But that’s a Wednesday matinee against the Florida Marlins, one of the league’s weakest and least-popular teams, when schools are still in session.
—Dan Schlossberg, Forbes.com, 21 Apr. 2025
The Last Five Years offers evening viewings at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. most weeknights and weekends, with 2 p.m. matinees available on Wednesday’s, Saturday’s and Sunday’s throughout each month.
—Maya Gandara, StyleCaster, 31 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for matinee
Cite this Entry
“Matinee.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/matinee. Accessed 8 May. 2025.
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matinee
noun
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