purlieu
Americannoun
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purlieus, environs or neighborhood.
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a place where one may range at large; confines or bounds.
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a person's haunt or resort.
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an outlying district or region, as of a town or city.
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a piece of land on the edge of a forest, originally land that, after having been included in a royal forest, was restored to private ownership, though still subject, in some respects, to the operation of the forest laws.
noun
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English history land on the edge of a forest that was once included within the bounds of the royal forest but was later separated although still subject to some of the forest laws, esp regarding hunting
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(usually plural) a neighbouring area; outskirts
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(often plural) a place one frequents; haunt
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rare a district or suburb, esp one that is poor or squalid
Etymology
Origin of purlieu
1475–85; alteration (simulating French lieu place) of earlier parlewe, parley, paraley purlieu of a forest < Anglo-French purale ( e ) a going through, equivalent to pur (< Latin prō for, pro 1, confused with per through) + aller ( see alley 1)
Explanation
The area directly around or outside of a place is called its purlieu. In a sense, a city's suburbs can also be thought of as its purlieus. This word usually shows up in its plural form, as in "the purlieus of the palace." You can use the noun purlieu for any outlying or nearby areas, or even to mean "usual haunts," like the used record shops and cafes where you and your friends normally hang out. Originally, a purlieu was a term used in Britain's now-obsolete forest law for land adjacent to a forest. It probably comes from the Anglo-French puralee, "a going round to settle the boundaries."
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.
“Have you been in a purlieu tonight? Confess. Say, ‘Guilty.’
From The New Yorker • Jan. 13, 2020
He knew Leicester Square, its every place and purlieu; and among others one where he could pitch upon a “pal.”
From The Child Wife by Reid, Mayne
They evidently deemed that a legal purlieu was a better place for 'pickings.'
From Prose Fancies by Le Gallienne, Richard
Then I fled her disdains and derisions To cities of pleasure, And made me the crony of idlers In every purlieu.
From Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses by Hardy, Thomas
From the eleventh story up, its wide windows surveyed every purlieu of Manhattan.
From Out of the Air by Gillmore, Inez Haynes
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.
