[
UK
/pˈɑːvənˌuː/
]
ADJECTIVE
- characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position
- of or characteristic of a parvenu
NOUN
- a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class
How To Use parvenu In A Sentence
- I often think a parvenue, or half-bred woman, would burst if she had to do as I do. The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton
- You rather liked parvenus: they had energy; they knew what they wanted.
- In Brazil, though rich in luxuriant vegetable and animal life, there is no history – all is new and progressive, but vulgar and parvenu; whereas Syria, in her abomination of desolation, is the old land, and she teems with relics of departed glory. The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton
- There is no such fawner on the aristocracy, if he has but a chance of getting any thing out of them, as a _parvenu_ by birth, a liberal in politics, and an Independent by "_religious persuasion_. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845
- It sounds good that some of the parvenus have volunteered to pay taxes.
- Telles sont mes sentiments sur la formation et sur le jeu des couleurs; c'est en suivant ces principes que je suis parvenu a simplifier plusieurs opérations de teinture, a produire quelques couleurs plus brillantes, plus solides et plus pénétrante dans la tissure des étoffes. The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe
- He is not alone in his depravity, however; his mistress is an opportunistic parvenu, and his wife is a merciless harpy.
- The English men of fashion in Paris courted her, too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could not bear the parvenue. Vanity Fair
- That even today a Democratic nominee speaks that way confirms G.K. Chesterton's belief that some political institutions are "parvenue by pedigree; they hand on vulgarity like a coat-of-arms. Relaxation By Exhaustion
- Even the most parvenu journalist is, or should be, taught at his first shoot that grouse and partridges are counted in brace, pheasants singly.
