Napoleonette complex–what does it mean?
What does slang term Napoleonette, when applied to a young woman, mean?
I’ve noticed this in an occasional Google search.
I assume it’s the female form of Napoleon Complex, which usually describes a man short of stature who feels inferior because of that and is therefore driven to be dominant/successful.
I always understood it to be Napoleonic.
Yes, it’s clearly just a mishearing of Napoleonic. (at least when paired with complex). As a noun it would be either ‘little’ Napoleon or ‘female’ Napoleon, depending on how you read the suffix.
There exists a novel and a play entitled Napoleonette.
The book’s author was ‘Gyp’, the pseudonym of Sibylle Aimée Marie Antoinette Gabrielle de Riquetti de Mirabeau, aka La Comtesse de Martel de Janville. The work fails to get a mention in her Wikipedia entry (still well worth a look) and plot details are thin on the ground. It takes place in Paris around the time of Louis XVIII. In the early 1920s Napoleonette was adapted for the theatre by Andre de Lorde and Jean Marsele.
Whether the book and play spawned the idea of a Napoleonette Complex is obviously debatable without further knowledge of plot and characterisation. For what it is worth I believe the expression is an invention to describe a female version of a Napoleon Complex, as indicated by Quercus.
Hmmm.
Maybe so.
Anybody else?