white-telephone

See also: white telephone

English

Alternative forms

• white telephone

Etymology

Adjective form of white telephone.

Adjective

white-telephone (comparative more white-telephone, superlative most white-telephone)

1. (often derogatory) Characteristic of the Italian genre of film called white telephone; suggesting consequence-free lives of privilege.
   • 1972, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker:

     Astaire and Rogers were fortunate: they embodied the swing-music, white-telephone, streamlined era before the Second World War, when frivolousness wasn't decadent, and when adolescents dreamed that 'going out' was dressing up and becoming part of a beautiful world of top hats and silver lamé.