sweet seventeen
- noun
:
quinceañera
- The highlight of her sweet seventeen was blowing out the candles on a beautiful cake.
Examples
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Many girls look forward to their sweet seventeen as a special coming-of-age event.
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She invited all her friends and family to celebrate her sweet seventeen.
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She celebrated her sweet seventeen with a big party.
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What are your plans for your sweet seventeen?
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Many girls look forward to their sweet seventeen as a special coming-of-age event.
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She invited all her friends and family to celebrate her sweet seventeen.
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The highlight of her sweet seventeen was blowing out the candles on a beautiful cake.
How Special
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'sweet' (pleasant/charming) and 'seventeen' (age) give a general clue that this relates to a pleasant seventeenth birthday, but the specific idiomatic sense of a formal celebratory milestone (analogous to 'sweet sixteen') and its cultural/gendered connotations are not strictly predictable from the words alone. Because a learner who knows both words could guess it refers to a birthday but might miss the conventional celebration meaning, the item is best classified as partially transparent.
Etymology
Sweet seventeen comes from the idea of a big, happy party with a sweet cake for a girl turning seventeen, so the phrase means a special 'coming of age' celebration.