vedette
/vɪˈdɛt/noun
vedette is a noun meaning “A sentinel, usually on horseback, stationed on the outpost of an army, to watch an enemy and give notice of danger” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-E-D-E-T-T-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 44 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of vedette is vedettes.
What does vedette mean?
noun
- 1
A sentinel, usually on horseback, stationed on the outpost of an army, to watch an enemy and give notice of danger.
- 2
A cabaret performer, usually the main female artist of a show.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce vedette?
- /vɪˈdɛt/
- /vəˈdɛt/
Vedette has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-vedette.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of vedette
- vedettes plural
- vidette
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vedette?
Vedette appears about once in every 44 million words in written English, the 204,233rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does vedette come from?
Borrowed from French vedette.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).