lioncelle

English

Noun

lioncelle (plural lioncelles)

  1. (heraldry) Alternative form of lioncel
  2. (specifically) Treated as feminine and applied figuratively to a woman; a lioness.
    • 1869, George Alfred Lawrence, Breaking a Butterfly; or, Blanche Ellerslie’s Ending, volume I, Tinsley Brothers, page 58:
      […] he would no more have thought of asking a young innocent girl to cast in her lot with him for better or for worse, than he would have sat down to play piquet with a boy who could not count the points of the game. Neither did the taming of a lioncelle tempt him a whit.
    • 1940, T.H. White, “The Ill-Made Knight”, in The Once and Future King‎, Ace Trade, published 1996, →ISBN, page 497:
      You could pretend that Guenever was a sort of man-eating lioncelle herself, or that she was one of those selfish women who insist on ruling everywhere. […] People who have been digested by a man-eating lioncelle tend to become nonentities—to live no life except within the vitals of the devourer.
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