zephyrette

zephyr +‎ -ette

zephyrette (plural zephyrettes)

1. A type of light, crisp cracker, used primarily for some hors d'oeuvres.
   • 1896, Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-school Cook Book, page 461:

     Spread zephyrettes with quince jelly and sprinkle with chopped English walnut meat. Place a zephyrette over each and press together.

   • 1896, Ysaguirre, La Marca, Cold Dishes for Hot Weather, page 126:

     Mix with the whites of the eggs, and spread on zephyrette biscuits or on thin slices of bread.

   • 1912, American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record - Volume 60, page 63:

     In tin packages costing twenty-five cents each the company offers afternoon teas, butter thins, ginger wafers, graham wafers, unsweetened grahams, oatmeals, pilot wafers, square saltines and zephyrettes.

   • 2008, May E. Southworth, Midnight Feasts, →ISBN, page 83:

     As the liquor flows from the oysters, dip it out with a spoon and keep them as dry as possible, until they are plump. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and add two tablespoonfuls of butter. Lay each one on a zephyrette and pour the liquor over.

2. A daughter of Aeolus; a tiny female spirit of the wind.
   • 1831, Belle Assemblée:

     The storm, however, subsided ; and subsequently I discovered, upon music and the opera becoming the topics of conversation, that Mr. Nobody rivalled Paganini on the violin ; and believed that his lady danced better than the zephyrette, Taglioni; and that Herz, Hummel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Weber, were, in comparison, beaten hollow by one of his little sisters.

   • 1863, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Levana ... Translated from the German, page 318:

     ... and then the battles and struggles of these animals, the injuries inflicted on them by each other, and yet their continued existence: and, finally, this mingled, fluttering, hurting, killing, caressing, reproducing life becomes an infinite breath of life, wherein the individual life flies like a tiny zephyrette .

   • 2003, David Rothenberg, Wandee J. Pryor, Writing on Air, →ISBN, page 274:

     Aeolus appeared surrounded by a crowd of his children — the zephyrs and zephyrettes.