précieuse

American  

[pray-see-ooz, pray-syœz] / ˌpreɪ siˈʊz, preɪˈsjœz /

noun

• précieuses
  plural

1. one of the 17th-century literary women of France who affected an extreme care in the use of language.

2. an affected or pretentious woman, especially one marked by preciosity in manner or speech.

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adjective

1. (of a woman) marked by affectation or preciosity.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• précieuses
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of précieuse

1720–30; < French; feminine of précieux ( def. ); see -euse

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

précieuse précieuses

Miss Neville should have reigned at the Hotel de Rambouillet when précieuse was more honoured than now.

From Infelice by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

Here in America their only suitable place would be a museum, or to frame the tiny "devotional" of some précieuse Flower of Modernity.

From The Art of Interior Decoration by Grace Wood

There is an advance in character, an advance in "interior" description—the Vollichon family circle, the banter and the gambling at Lucrèce's home, the humour of a précieuse meeting, etc.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 by George Saintsbury

We hope we have not been understood as meaning to insinuate, that because her Ladyship is the mother of a couple of dozen of volumes, she is on that account a précieuse ridicule.

From The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 by Robert Walsh

But she, with many of her peers, was too rich in sarcastic common sense to be a précieuse ridicule.

From Classic French Course in English by William Cleaver Wilkinson

In a sort of loud cackling—a voice she sometimes surprisingly adopted—she replied, "Oh, give me a blow-out of tripe and onions!" to the confusion of the précieuses.

From Some Diversions of a Man of Letters by Edmund Gosse

Some of the refined ladies at Mrs. Gilder's objected to his "crude speech," for even in the eighties there were still précieuses.

From Confessions of a Book-Lover by Maurice Francis Egan

That which vauntingly styles itself the écriture artiste must reap its reward promptly in praise from the précieuses ridicules of the hour.

From Inquiries and Opinions by Brander Matthews

Madame de Longueville reigned there as well as in all the best circles of Paris; and it must be confessed, with her good qualities she had also some of the defects of the best précieuses.

From Political Women, Vol. 1 by Sutherland Menzies

She was carefully brought up under Ménage and Rapin, among others, and was one of the most brilliant of the précieuses of the Hôtel Rambouillet.

From A Short History of French Literature by George Saintsbury

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