‘she was a constant recipient of billets-doux from the boys of the neighboring school’
‘In the last four years alone, no fewer than three auctions have featured billets-doux and other letters written by the Duke of Windsor when he held the titles Prince of Wales and King Edward VIII.’
‘As she seems easily fooled, why not send yourself sheaves of valentines and other billets-doux?’
‘And so he returns to the paparazzi and the predictable billets-doux slipped under the door by self-justifying journalists who have hypocrisy tattooed on their foreheads.’
‘Contrary to what Bridget Jones's Diary suggests, e-mail has proved an equally unreliable medium for billets-doux.’
‘Of course, as well as penning billets-doux to gifted actors, he can also be marvellously tactless about those who don't impress him.’
‘A traffic ticket is not a billet-doux, nor is it a token of affection someone named ‘Don Juan’ delivers.’
‘So I thought it was time to share my riches; hence the following billet-doux on New Zealand skifields.’
‘Gone was the woozy romanticism I had wanted to read into his first billet-doux.’
‘‘This service is very much loved by those engrossed in clandestine relationships of a carnal nature for passing surreptitious billets-doux,’ he said.’
‘From the sublime to the royal billet-doux, the same sale has a collection of 314 unpublished love letters comprising over 2,900 pages from the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) to his mistress, Mrs Freda Dudley Ward.’
‘The rough trajectory of the plot begins with Kitty's discovery of a billet-doux, from her husband to Tula.’
‘And better still, the back of the menu was a billet-doux to gastronomic accountability.’
‘So in the meantime I'll have to make do with this little billet-doux which has come fluttering through my letterbox…’
‘Not only that, e-mail is also treacherous, offering the illusion of a confidential or subversive chat when every electronic billet-doux belongs to the employer and can be produced in an industrial tribunal.’
‘If I haven't burnt this little billet-doux to light the gas ring for my morning sausages.’
Origin
Late 17th century French, literally ‘sweet note’.
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