pied-à-terre
Americannoun
-
pieds-à-terre
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pied-à-terre
1820–30; < French: literally, foot on ground
Explanation
When your friend talks about his pied-a-terre in the city, it's just his fancy way of mentioning the apartment he keeps there to stay in from time to time. This borrowing from French, literally "foot on ground," designates a small second home. Dictionaries are in general content to stop their explanation of the origins of pied-a-terre by simply translating it, as if this were sufficient to explain how it inherited this meaning. On the other hand, it would hardly be a home if you didn't have your foot on the ground there some time.
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.
See Examples For:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration defended the launch of its new pied-à-terre tax in a legal filing Tuesday while acknowledging the rollout created confusion among some property owners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
Mamdani took flak earlier this year when he announced the pied-à-terre tax outside billionaire financier Ken Griffin’s $238 million apartment in Manhattan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
Haber said he believes the loss of tax revenue from fewer people purchasing pricey homes in New York would offset the effects of the pied-à-terre tax.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
City council member Gale Brewer said she and some other council members supported the pied-à-terre tax, but pointed to "challenges" with its implementation.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
He had pictured to himself a pied-à-terre in Paris which it might be agreeable for him to secure, for existence in Normandy might occasionally prove canuyeux.
From Charlotte's Inheritance by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
Mastro, who served as a deputy mayor under former Mayor Eric Adams, said that in its attempt to identify the luxury pieds-à-terre in the city, the Department of Finance cast too wide a net.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, the tax would “target wealthy individuals who own these pieds-à-terre but primarily live outside the city” and is aimed at closing the city’s $12 billion annual budget gap.
From MarketWatch ● May 1, 2026
It would specifically target wealthy individuals who own these pieds-à-terre but primarily live outside the city.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Some of Dr. Zhang’s patients, envisioning further babies and more in vitro fertilization procedures and births in New York, wind up buying pieds-à-terre on West 57th Street, he told me.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2017
Many of today’s lower-priced studios are in co-ops, which can have strict policies against subletting and may not allow pieds-à-terre or buyers who need financial help from family or friends.
From New York Times ● Mar. 26, 2011
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.
