galere

Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • noun A group of people with some common characteristic, especially a coterie of undesirable people.

Examples

  • 'Monsieur,' replied the little barber, 'a plutocrat knows too well that if he mixes in that 'galere' there 's not a dog in the streets more lost than he.'

    Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works

  • What he meant, and what Mademoiselle Valle knew he meant -- also what he knew she knew he meant -- was that a woman, who was a heartless fool, without sympathy or perception, would not have the delicacy to feel that the girl must be shielded, and might actually see a sort of ghastly joke in a story of Mademoiselle Valle's sacrosanct charge simply walking out of her enshrining arms into such a "galere" as the most rackety and adventurous of pupils could scarcely have been led into.

    The Head of the House of Coombe, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Note

This word translates from the French as 'gallery.'