précieuse

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A woman who is affectedly fastidious in language or taste; a woman who is over-refined: from the title of Molière's “Les précieuses ridicules.”

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An affected woman of polite society, esp. one of the literary women of the French salons of the 17th century. See aslo preciosity.