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bourgeois

 - 7 dictionary results

bour⋅geois

1  [boor-zhwah, boor-zhwah; Fr. boor-zhwa] noun, plural -geois, adjective
Use bourgeois in a Sentence
–noun
1. a member of the middle class.
2. a person whose political, economic, and social opinions are believed to be determined mainly by concern for property values and conventional respectability.
3. a shopkeeper or merchant.
–adjective
4. belonging to, characteristic of, or consisting of the middle class.
5. conventional; middle-class.
6. dominated or characterized by materialistic pursuits or concerns.
Origin:
1555–65; < MF; OF borgeis burgess

bour⋅geois

2  [ber-jois]
–noun Printing.
a size of type approximately 9-point, between brevier and long primer.
Origin:
1815–25; perh. from a printer so named

Bour⋅geois

  [boor-zhwah, boor-zhwah; Fr. boor-zhwa]
–noun
1. Lé⋅on Vic⋅tor Au⋅guste  [ley-awn veek-tawr oh-gyst] , 1851–1925, French statesman: Nobel peace prize 1920.
2. Louise, born 1911, U.S. sculptor, born in France.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To bourgeois
bour·geois   (bŏŏr-zhwä', bŏŏr'zhwä')   
n.   pl. bourgeois

  1. A person belonging to the middle class.

  2. A person whose attitudes and behavior are marked by conformity to the standards and conventions of the middle class.

  3. In Marxist theory, a member of the property-owning class; a capitalist.

adj.  

  1. Of, relating to, or typical of the middle class.

  2. Held to be preoccupied with respectability and material values.


[French, from Old French burgeis, citizen of a town, from bourg, bourg; see bourg.]
Bour·geois   (bŏŏr-zhwä')   
French statesman who was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague (1903-1925) and helped draft the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919). He won the 1920 Nobel Peace Prize.
Bourgeois, Louise Born 1911.  
French-born American sculptor whose often erotic sculptures are characterized by elongated figures and abstract shapes.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Word Origin & History

bourgeois 
1564, "of the Fr. middle class," from Fr., from O.Fr. burgeis "town dweller" (as distinct from "peasant"), from borc "town, village," from Frank. *burg (see borough). Sense of "socially or aesthetically conventional" is from 1764; in communist and socialist writing, "a capitalist" (1883). Bourgeoisie (n.) "middle class" is first recorded 1707.
"It is better to be a good ordinary bourgeois than a bad ordinary bohemian." [Aldous Huxley, 1930]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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