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Recent Examples of grande dameThen in her mid-fifties, Bainbridge was already well on her way to the status of a slightly rackety grande dame, having made her name in the Seventies with a blizzard of short, elliptical novels, comic in execution but tinged with an underlying darkness.—Christopher Tayler, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026 Athena, meanwhile, is a grande dame with an inability to shake anything off.—Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 17 Jan. 2026 Grand Hotel Parker’s Naples’ historic grande dame occupies a privileged position on a hill in the elegant Chiaia neighborhood, with sweeping views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius in the distance.—Laura Itzkowitz, Travel + Leisure, 19 Dec. 2025 Historical grande dames don’t seem to be her forte.—Judy Berman, Time, 4 Dec. 2025 See All Example Sentences for grande dame
The show’s underpinned by the differences in character and country of Lady Cora and her formidable mother-in-law, the dowager Countess Violet Crawley, played by the equally formidable and much missed Dame Maggie Smith.
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Baz Bamigboye,
Deadline,
22 July 2025
The empress dowager’s legacy Empress Dowager Ling was largely unsuccessful in her bid for power.
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Stephanie Balkwill,
The Conversation,
17 Mar. 2025
As the movie begins, Armando takes shelter in a Recife safehouse, overseen by a cigarette-ripping matron called Dona Sebastiana and populated by refugees navigating their own unspecified troubles.
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Michael Snyder,
The Atlantic,
13 Mar. 2026
Only 40 guests were invited to the wedding, including John’s cousin Anthony Radziwill (who served as his best man); John’s sister, Caroline Kennedy (Carolyn’s matron of honour), and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg; and their kids, Jack (the ring bearer), Rose and Tatiana (both flower girls).
When four of its members (Ogoni chiefs — one of whom was my mother’s brother-in-law) were brutally killed by restive Ogoni youths, the government arrested my father and eight of his colleagues.
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Noo Saro-Wiwa,
The Dial,
24 Mar. 2026
Medina’s mother, reached by phone, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.