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
Lynette Rice, Deadline, 6 June 2025
The team plans to shoot the Friday evening show and the Saturday matinee as a rehearsal, which will then be reviewed by Clooney, the play’s co-writer Grant Heslov and others, before the live broadcast.
—Caitlin Huston, HollywoodReporter, 5 June 2025
Movie Den, a teen-centric matinee repertory series held in the MUBI microcinema, will run June 16 through August 27 at Vidiots.
—Lauren Coates, Variety, 2 June 2025
Tickets purchased for the 7:10 contest will be valid for the matinee.
—Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News, 27 May 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 20 Jun. 2025.
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matinee
noun
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