prima ballerina

plural prima ballerinas

1. The leading ballerina in a dance company.

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   This elaborate ballet is a little too long for a modern audience, the action is not always clear to those who do not understand the language of gesture, while the elaborate and extremely difficult movements of the prima ballerina lose part of the effect they made in the far-off days of Fanny Elssler and Lucile Grahn. When these great prime ballerine were to the fore, and Cerito and Taglioni were dancing, the various degrees of achievement in Italian ballet-dancing were well known and understood.

   1911 October 28, The Illustrated London News, volume CXXXIX, number 3784, page 678