First recorded in 1840–45; from French: literally, “well thinking,” equivalent to bien, from Latin bene “well” + pensant, present participle of penser “to think”; see origin at pensive ( def. )
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Here, to the horror of Carrère and his bien pensant circle, he ended up among the Serbs.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 21, 2014
In other words, the same bien pensant crew who spoke on the last hot money-related subject of the day, whether it was trade barriers or exchange rates or whatever.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2014
The French have a phrase for us: bien pensant, well-thinking, comfortable in received wisdom.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 8, 2010
He might be a Jesuit, but he was bien pensant.
From The Disentanglers by Lang, Andrew
And for the weekly Punch;—so gemütlich and bien pensant and, often, very, very funny, with a funniness that the Continental papers never give one; their jests are never the jests of the bien pensant.
From Tante by Sedgwick, Anne Douglas
One needn’t be a bien-pensant liberal to acknowledge that side of the problem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2016
But to other readers, the sense of freewheeling debate—as opposed to bien-pensant wisdom or party-line doctrine—gave the magazine its exciting appeal.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2014
If “Gribiche” seems a bit predetermined and bien-pensant, “Les Nouveaux Messieurs” is anything but.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2013
Although I'm no fan of the kind of bien-pensant snobbery towards heritage that informs Alan Bennett's latest play, People, I'd sooner watch every episode of Hunted twice than pay to visit a country estate.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 25, 2012
Collaborations with bien-pensant contemporary artists further enhance Supreme’s esoteric air.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2012
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
