précieuse

American  

[prey-see-ooz, prey-syœz] / ˌpreɪ siˈʊz, preɪˈsjœz /

noun

• précieuses
  plural

1. one of the 17th-century literary women of France who affected an extreme care in the use of language.

2. an affected or pretentious woman, especially one marked by preciosity in manner or speech.

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adjective

1. (of a woman) marked by affectation or preciosity.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• précieuses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of précieuse

1720–30; < French; feminine of précieux ( def. ); see -euse

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

précieuse précieuses

Miss Seward, a typical specimen of the provincial précieuse, attempted to trace them in an epitaph which he was said to have written at the age of three.

From Samuel Johnson by Sir Leslie Stephen

As the précieuse did nothing according to common usage, she could not dine p. 50like another. 

From The Essays of "George Eliot" Complete by Nathan Sheppard

But she, with many of her peers, was too rich in sarcastic common sense to be a précieuse ridicule.

From Classic French Course in English by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Here in America their only suitable place would be a museum, or to frame the tiny "devotional" of some précieuse Flower of Modernity.

From The Art of Interior Decoration by Grace Wood

Miss Neville should have reigned at the Hotel de Rambouillet when précieuse was more honoured than now.

From Infelice by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

About our author, however, we know that his experience has been long, and of the best, that he does not speak from a hasty acquaintance with a few contemporary précieux and précieuses.

From On the Sublime by H. L. (Herbert Lord) Havell

Some of the refined ladies at Mrs. Gilder's objected to his "crude speech," for even in the eighties there were still précieuses.

From Confessions of a Book-Lover by Maurice Francis Egan

We are vexed by pedantries that recall the précieuses of the Hôtel Rambouillet, but we know that she had the soul of the most heroic women in history.

From Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) The Life of George Eliot by John Morley

That which vauntingly styles itself the écriture artiste must reap its reward promptly in praise from the précieuses ridicules of the hour.

From Inquiries and Opinions by Brander Matthews

She was carefully brought up under Ménage and Rapin, among others, and was one of the most brilliant of the précieuses of the Hôtel Rambouillet.

From A Short History of French Literature by George Saintsbury