merveilleux

See also: Merveilleux

English

Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Lady (c. 1799)

Alternative forms

Etymology

From the French merveilleux.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /mɛɹ.veɪˈjə/, /-ˈju/, /-ˈjoʊ/

Noun

merveilleux (plural merveilleux, feminine merveilleuse)

  1. (historical) Contemporary names for an extravagantly dressed French fop or ‘fine lady’ of the period of the Directory (1795–1799), who affected a revival of the classical costume of Ancient Greece.
    • 1892 October 19, The Daily News, page 5/1:
      The ‘merveilleuse’ of the Directory in France. The ‘merveilleuse’, or ‘ultra-fashionable’, as the writer..rather inadequately translates her title, ‘walked..half naked in the Champs Elysees’.
    • 1898, Octave Uzanne, chapter I, in Mary Loyd, transl., Fashion in Paris: The Various Phases of Feminine Taste and Æsthetics from 1797 to 1897, page 8:
      The Ecrouelleux, the Inconcevables, the Merveilleux, with their chins sunk in their huge cravats.
    • ibidem, page 19:
      The Merveilleuses survived the Incroyables by a couple of years.

Translations

References

Further reading

French

Etymology

From merveille + -eux.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /mɛʁ.vɛ.jø/, /mɛʁ.ve.jø/
  • (file)

Adjective

merveilleux (feminine merveilleuse, masculine plural merveilleux, feminine plural merveilleuses)

  1. marvelous, brilliant

Derived terms

Descendants

  • English: merveilleux

Further reading

Middle French

Etymology

Old French merveillos, etc.

Noun

merveilleux m (feminine singular merveilleuse, masculine plural merveilleux, feminine plural merveilleuses)

  1. marvelous; brilliant, etc.

Descendants

References

  • merveilleux on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)
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