raconteuse means A female storyteller. It carries an Arena rating of 1738, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, raconteuse ranks #1,422 of 13,220 for Most Beautiful Words, #2,307 of 13,220 for Most Elegant Words, #2,491 of 13,220 for Most Vivid Words, #3,176 of 13,220 for Most Satisfying to Say.
Why “raconteuse” is a great word
RACONTEUSE — [Noun] A female storyteller, especially one skilled in the telling of anecdotes. From French raconteuse, feminine form of raconteur ('storyteller'), from the verb raconter ('to tell, to relate'), itself from Old French raconter, from re- ('again') + aconter ('to tell, to count'). First attested in English 1860–65. Unlike “gossip,” which traffics in whispered trivialities, or “narrator,” a neutral functional term, a raconteuse is an artist of the social, a curator of personal history. She is the low laughter around a fire, the deft pause over a half-empty wine glass, the conjured scent of a Parisian café in a story fifty years gone—a momentary stay against the forgetting of lives well-lived.
Etymology
Borrowed from French raconteuse.
noun
- A female storyteller.“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?"”
Words closest in meaning
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