canaille
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of canaille
1670–80; < French < Italian canaglia pack of dogs, equivalent to can ( e ) dog (< Latin canis ) + -aglia collective suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He knew nothing of that silent middle class that struggled between genteel poverty and the impossible desire of emulating the golden canaille to which he himself belonged.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
But to think of her partaking of hospitality—all alone, too—with the canaille of Wynford!”
From A Very Naughty Girl by Meade, L. T.
The canaille that had crouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changing its posture!
From The Red Cockade by Weyman, Stanley John
Then may I ask what are these canaille to me?
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 95, September 1865 by Various
Mon cher,' said the other, 'you and I were once gentlemen—we talked, ate, drank, and dressed as such; we have now the canaille life, and the past is scarcely even a dream.'
From Gerald Fitzgerald The Chevalier by Lever, Charles James
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.
