Crossword clues for parvenu
parvenu
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Parvenu \Par"ve*nu`\, n. [F., prop. p. p. of parvenir to attain to, to succeed, to rise to high station, L. pervenire to come to; per through + venire to come. See Par, prep., and Come.] An upstart; a man newly risen into notice.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"upstart," 1802, from French parvenu, "said of an obscure person who has made a great fortune" (Littré); noun use of past participle of parvenir "to arrive" (12c.), from Latin pervenire "to come up, arrive, attain," from per- "through" (see per (prep.)) + venire "to come" (see venue). As an adjective from 1828.
Wiktionary
a. Being a parvenu; also, like, having the characteristics of, or associated with a parvenu. n. A person who has risen, climbed up, or has been promoted to a higher social class, especially through acquisition of wealth, rights, or political authority but has not gained social acceptance by those within that new class.
WordNet
adj. characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position [syn: nouveau-riche, parvenue, upstart(a)]
of or characteristic of a parvenu [syn: parvenue]
n. a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class [syn: upstart, nouveau-riche, arriviste]
Wikipedia
A parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir (to reach, to arrive, to manage to do something).
Usage examples of "parvenu".
His master, on the other hand, scrutinized the murals carefully, and blessed his companions with a running commentary on the Mission of Art, replete with many citations from the ancients, the essential thrust of which was that Paul Gauphin was an arrant alphabetarian, a nugatory neophyte, a coarse catechumen, a posturing parvenu who thought to conceal his blatant ignorance of the classic methods of proportion, line, perspective and portraiture by his extravagant colorism, the which was nothing but a maneuver to dupe his patrons by passing off crudity as primitivism.
Able scorned this parvenu son of a goatherd who had probably struck oil while overzealously driving a tent peg.
It is alike the passion of the parvenu and the pride of the aristocrat.
Metropolitan magnificence, which, if the parvenu could not equal, he at least could imitate, seemed a poor return for the feudal splendour and impartial festivity of an Hungarian magnate.
How could such a parvenu hold the romance of a flower that had been found in tombs of nineteen hundred B.
You must not be offended if I call you a parvenu in spite of your birth.
As if to prove the point she caught sight of the greatest parvenu of them all: Mrs.
His enemies were ready enough to allow his military talents, but they wished to attribute the first success of his not very deep policy to a marvellous duplicity, apparently considered by them the more wicked as possessed by a parvenu emperor, and far removed, in a moral point of view, from the statecraft so allowable in an ancient monarchy.
It would displease me, my love, if you were to form a romantic attachment for a parvenu like Fourrnyle of Ceres.
Glendower abroad, the latter had often, though innocently, galled the vanity and self-pride of the parvenu affecting the aristocrat, and in poverty the parvenu was anxious to retaliate.
Barizel et de sa fille telle que je la demele au milieu de tous les renseignements, souvent contradictoires, que je suis parvenu a reunir depuis que je suis ici.
Farmers were far from being the knuckle-cracking, clodhopping, parvenu philistines that the stage caricature of Turcaret suggested.
At these reunions I had to play the part of host--to meet and entertain fat mercantile parvenus who were impossible by reason of their rudeness and braggadocio, colonels of various kinds, hungry authors, and journalistic hacks-- all of whom disported themselves in fashionable tailcoats and pale yellow gloves, and displayed such an aggregate of conceit and gasconade as would be unthinkable even in St.
Fernand and Danglars, being both parvenus, both having become noble, both rich, are about equal in worth, excepting that there have been certain things mentioned of him that were never said of me.
This august body has admitted too many parvenus, too many noxious mushrooms, too many New Men into its senior magistracies.