PARVENU • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Parvenu

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

Parvenu

adjective

Characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position. Synonyms: nouveau-riche, parvenue, upstart.

Of or characteristic of a parvenu. Synonym: parvenue.

See images of 'Parvenu'

Etymology of 'Parvenu'

Click any word on the page to get its definition

Text size: A A

Share |

"Parvenu" Quotes from Famous Books

... clothes itself to go out and goes out to gabble. All that world of great and small pretensions, that world of insolence and humble desires, of envy and cringing, all that is gilded or tarnished, young or old, noble of yesterday or noble from the fourth century, all that sneers at a parvenu, all that fears to commit itself, all that wants to demolish power and worships power if it resists,—all those ears hear, all those tongues say, all those minds know, in a single evening, where the new-comer ...

— Juana • Honore de Balzac

Read full book for free!

Words linked to "Parvenu" : junior, social climber, upstart, new, climber, unpleasant person, pretentious, disagreeable person