demi-tasse

plural demi-tasses

1. alternativeAlternative form of demitasse.

   Others had gone to the cellar but when the dukes continued to calmly sip their demi-tasses, Mary had decided she would, too.

   1992, Sybil Downing, Jane Valentine Barker, chapter 11, in Crown of Life: The Story of Mary Roberts Rinehart, Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, →ISBN, page 99

   5 more examples

   He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.

   1876 July, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVIII, number CCXXV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter IV, page 17, column 2

   The lady in this painting obviously is not in the mood for coffee; she looks away from her demi-tasse with disarming absent-mindedness, her expression is wistfully, even painfully contemplative, though somewhat marred by the loss of an eye.

   1933 January, Maurice J. Valency, “The Art World”, in F[ilippo] Cassola, editor, Atlantica, volume XIV, number 4, New York, N.Y.: F. Cassola, page 175, column 2

   At four-thirty the diners relinquished their demi-tasses to Carrington and returned to the living room for the afternoon session.

   1979, Archibald Rogers, The Monticello Fault, Durham, N.C.: Moore Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 275

   At another time, we lunched at a café where ladies sat alone at tables smoking cigarettes with their demi-tasses while men in the back of the room sang passionate Italian love songs.

   1987, Malcolm W. Greenough, Jr., Dear Lily: A Love Story, Dublin, N.H.: Yankee Books, →ISBN, page 164

   After dinner, they were in the habit of taking their demi-tasses into the drawingroom where green logs, smouldering thinly in the grate, gave ample reason for those damp patches on walls and ceiling, […]

   1987, Sheila MacLeod Smith, chapter 1, in The Transplanted, Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild Ltd, →ISBN, pages 3–4