belle sabreuse

Borrowed from French belle (“lovely”) + sabreuse (“swordswoman”), after beau sabreur.

belle sabreuse (plural belles sabreuses)

1. A gallant swordswoman; a dashing female adventurer.
   • 1896 March, Wilstach, Claxton, “The Señorita of the Sword”, in Godey's Magazine, volume CXXXII, number 789, pages 257-260:

     The newspaper accounts show that several attempts were made, and not without success in two or three instances, to deprive la belle sabreuse of the points she had made, and to place her hors de combat.

   • 1998, Luke Jennings, Beauty Story, Hutchinson, page 161:

     Quite sexy, those scars, though, in a belle sabreuse sort of way.

   • 2006, Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda Means the Universe, St. Martins Press, page 143:

     Exhausted, I canter through postpandrial naps atop a Senegalese camel, and in full beau geste. "En avant, ma belle sabreuse!" shouts Tintin into the teeth of the wind.

• beau sabreur