Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A woman belonging to the middle class.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A female member of the bourgeoisie; a wealthy woman

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, feminine of bourgeois, bourgeois; see bourgeois.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French bourgeoise

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Examples

  • The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise is a prude; your century is unfortunate.

    Les Miserables, Volume V, Jean Valjean 1862

  • The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise is a prude; your century is unfortunate.

    Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1843

  • As to the poor orphan, buried in Paris, educated as a "bourgeoise," she will never see her face, save perhaps, as a passing stranger.

    The Little Lady of Lagunitas A Franco-Californian Romance Richard Savage 1874

  • Lewis hastened to the "bourgeoise" in their barge close by, to give the alarm.

    Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans 1846

  • LC: I think we were very overt in making this film about a kind of bourgeoise, middle class, conventional couple so that we weren't doing something "radical" on the surface.

    Chicagoist 2010

  • She belies her origin only by her talent; but, when she is outside her talent, she becomes once more her mother's daughter, that is to say 'bourgeoise' and 'Gay' thoroughbred. "

    Balzac Frederick Lawton

  • She belies her origin only by her talent; but, when she is outside her talent, she becomes once more her mother's daughter, that is to say 'bourgeoise' and 'Gay' thoroughbred. "

    Balzac Lawton, Frederick 1910

  • "I have got my portion!" she cried at once; (Ginevra ever stuck to the substantial; I always thought there was a good trading element in her composition, much as she scorned the "bourgeoise;") "and uncle de

    Villette Charlotte Bront�� 1835

  • I came of age in a section of Queens where many of Haiti's bourgeoise elite skittered to when their patron saint, dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier decided to break out like the chicken pox when it became clear in a post-Marcos, post-Pinochet world that despots were on the way out whether they liked it or not.

    Archive 2010-02-01 2010

  • I came of age in a section of Queens where many of Haiti's bourgeoise elite skittered to when their patron saint, dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier decided to break out like the chicken pox when it became clear in a post-Marcos, post-Pinochet world that despots were on the way out whether they liked it or not.

    Like Hell Needs A Heat Wave... 2010

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