‖ beau rôle
(bo rol)
[Fr., = fine rôle.]
A fine acting part; the leading part; also transf.
| 1887 Athenæum 29 Oct. 561/3 Each assumed the moral government of the world without appealing to any revelation. This assumption, of course, gives the beau rôle to a prophet. 1927 in D. McCarthy Drama (1940) 102 In Ibsen the woman nearly always has the beau rôle. 1938 Times Lit. Suppl. 10 Sept. 581/4 The beau rôle at Fontenoy was that of the Irish Brigade. 1939 A. Toynbee Study of Hist. IV. 221 The beau rôle of ‘the prisoner of the Vatican’. |