Showing results for "beaux esprits"

• plural of bel esprit.

beaux esprits

American  

[boh zes-pree] / boʊ zɛsˈpri /

Sometimes beaux-esprits

noun

French.

1. plural of bel esprit.

   In an era ironically called the Enlightenment, these young women were discouraged from becoming beaux esprits.

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Etymology

Origin of beaux esprits

First recorded in 1630–40; see origin at bel esprit ( def. )

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

beaux esprits

In these Memoirs, Fléchier relates an anecdote of a young lady “who was the Sappho of the country,” and greatly beloved by all the beaux esprits of the time. 

From Pascal by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Indeed, you would be sick of that house, whither all pretended beaux esprits and faux savants go, and where they are very impertinent and dogmatic.

From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 by Horace Walpole

Oxenstiern.—Those beaux esprits judged according to their predominant passion. 

From Dialogues of the Dead by Henry Morley

He reminded her at once of Sheridan and "poor dear Mirabeau," and various other "beaux esprits" she used to live with.

From The Daltons, Volume II (of II) Or,Three Roads In Life by Charles James Lever

German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits, eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions had not immigrated along with them.

From The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

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