vedette

Noun

vedette (plural vedettes)

1. (historical) A sentinel, usually on horseback, stationed on the outpost of an army, to watch an enemy and give notice of danger.
   • The enemy made no effort to pursue Marshal Blücher. On the contrary, a patrole which I sent to Sombref in the morning found all quiet; and the enemy's vedettes fell back as the patrole advanced.1815 June 19, Arthur Wellesley, Wellingon's Waterloo dispatch to Lord Bathurst
   • My goal was Desolation Peak, the cabin where rookie vedette Jack Kerouac spent 63 eventful days in the summer of 1956.2021 February 16, Dan Richards, “Peak cabin: a fire-spotter's lonely vantage point in Washington state”, in The Guardian
2. A cabaret performer, usually the main female artist of a show.
   • Josephine Baker arrived in Cuba in 1951. When this famous black American vedette arrived—she who had first enraptured Paris and later the rest of Europe—Rita Montaner played a trick on her. La Baker, as well as Cuban vedettes and rumba dancers, had conquered Europe by selling exoticism to an avid...2005, Coco Fusco, Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, Routledge, →ISBN, page 44