Brigitte Bardot

English

Etymology

Named after French fashion model and actress Brigitte Bardot (1934–).
Sense 2 inspired by Bardot's popular nickname, BB.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊ

Noun

Brigitte Bardot (plural Brigitte Bardots)

1. Someone or something very beautiful or desirable.
   • 1974, The Spectator, volume 232, part 1, page 51:

     I can claim no such dedication to duty since Christmas was passed way up the French Alps in a place where Brigitte Bardots are two-a-penny but horses a rarity.

   • 1980, Thomas N. Gladwin, Ingo Walter, Multinationals Under Fire: Lessons in the Management of Conflict, page 268:

     […] performance swelled French national pride and excited the fancy of stock market speculators — it became “the Brigitte Bardot of French industry.”

   • 1994, J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, page 268:

     ...who, in discussing the Puritan position, declared: ‘I want a Brigitte Bardot who can lead a Bible class’

   • 2009, Christina Palassio, Alana Wilcox, quoting Andrew Braithwaite, Toronto, je t'aime!, quoted in The Edible City: Toronto's Food from Farm to Fork, unnumbered page:

     Paris is the greatest food city in the world – the Rolls Royce, the Château d'Yquem, the Brigitte Bardot of gastronomic capitals.

2. (Australia, finance, informal) A back-to-back loan.
   • 1992 March 3, Michael Rozenes, “Prosecuting Regulatory Offenders”, in parliamentary debates‎^[1]:

     These practices included back to back loans (in some quarters colloquially termed Brigitte Bardot′s from the initials B.B.), […] .

   • 1995, The Bulletin, numbers 5953-5959, page 77:

     This is a back-to-back loan, sometimes called BBs or Brigitte Bardots.