milieu
Americannoun
plural
milieus,plural
milieuxnoun
Related Words
See environment.
Etymology
Origin of milieu
First recorded in 1795–1805; from French, equivalent to mi (from Latin medius “middle”; see medium) + lieu lieu
Explanation
A milieu is a surrounding culture. Your family, house, neighborhood, school, and people you hang out with make up your milieu. For example, if you live in a mansion and have rich friends, you’re part of the upper crust milieu. A milieu is both "surroundings" and everything that makes up the surroundings. Your milieu is your world, or the context you come from. Sometimes a milieu shapes a person, as when a "milieu of abuse and poverty," inspires someone to improve things for others. Milieu sounds a lot like mildew without the "d," but unless you grew up in a moldy bathtub, mildew probably has little to do with your milieu, or environment.
Vocabulary lists containing milieu
100 SAT Words Beginning with "M"
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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A Walk in the Woods
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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.
To those in Griffin’s milieu, or who aspire to be, the video was a distasteful and even dangerous broadside against the city’s wealthy.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026
"By asking why LNPs perform so differently in the physiological milieu of the body, we found a surprisingly simple answer that could make a wide range of mRNA and gene editing therapies substantially more effective."
From Science Daily • Apr. 20, 2026
In this milieu, Hollywood A-listers like Will Ferrell and Sharon Stone, who occupy separate cliques nearby, pale in comparison to the mingling artistic luminaries.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2026
Coming of age in this seamy milieu has given him a cynical worldview and a preternatural calm.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026
The project returned him to the milieu of small science he had left behind after his first few handmade cyclotrons.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
