lace-curtain

American  

[leys-kur-tn] / ˈleɪsˌkɜr tn /

adjective

Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive.

1. characteristic of or aspiring to the standards and attributes of the middle class.

   Her latest novel traces the rise of a lace-curtain Irish family in Boston.

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Example Sentences

Both parents, Dery tells us, “were of Irish descent, though the Garveys — moneyed, Republican, Episcopalian — were the lace-curtain variety, several rungs up the socioeconomic ladder from the working-class, Democrat, devoutly Catholic Goreys.”

From New York Times

“Fashion Climbing” is a narrow slice of Cunningham’s life story, from his childhood in a “middle-class Catholic home in a lace-curtain Irish suburb of Boston,” through his time as a successful milliner in New York, until he takes his first steps into journalism at Women’s Wear Daily.

From Washington Post

It is also the poignant portrait of a boy growing up in a “lace-curtain Irish suburb of Boston” whose passions do not necessarily align with the expectations for him.

From New York Times

Born into what he called a “lace-curtain Protestant” home to unhappily married parents, he moved often as a boy and attended an assortment of schools.

From The New Yorker

Even if they happened to cash a lottery ticket, they wouldn’t buy anything fancy, lest they earn the dread epithet, “lace-curtain Irish.”

From New York Times

Related Words

• noble