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demimonde

noun
/ˈdɛmiːmɒnd/UK/ˈdɛmiˌmɑnd/US

Etymology

Borrowed from French demi-monde (literally “half-world”), from demi (“half”) + monde (“world; people”); possibly coined by French author and playwright Alexandre Dumas fils as the title of a comedic play, Le Demi Monde (1855): see the quotation from 1864.

  1. borrowed from demi-monde

Definitions

  1. A class of women maintained by wealthy protectors

    A class of women maintained by wealthy protectors; female courtesans or prostitutes as a group.

  2. A group having little respect or reputation.

    • the literary demimonde

  3. A member of such a class or group of persons.

    • On the evening of 4 August 1914 London's Café Royal was alive with its usual array of demimondes, dandies, aristocrats, émigrés, and self-styled bohemians.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for demimonde. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA