Bohemian, a. and n.
(bəʊˈhiːmɪən)
[f. prec. + -an. The transferred senses are taken from French, in which bohême, bohémien, have been applied to the gipsies, since their first appearance in the 15th c., because they were thought to come from Bohemia, or perhaps actually entered the West through that country. Thence, in modern French, the word has been transferred to ‘vagabond, adventurer, person of irregular life or habits’, a sense introduced into Eng. by Thackeray.]
A. n.
1. A native of Bohemia.
| 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iv. ii. 134 A Bohemian borne: But here nurst vp & bred. 1845 S. Austin tr. Ranke's Hist. Ref. II. 469 He acceded to the demand of the Bohemians. |
b. A follower of John Huss, a Bohemian Protestant or Hussite.
| 1579 Fulke Heskins' Parl. 189 The Bohemians vsed this text, to proue the communion in both kindes. |
2. A gipsy. [F. bohême, bohémien.]
| 1696 Phillips, Bohemians, the same with Gypsies, Vagabonds that strowl about the Country. 1823 Scott Quentin D. xvi, I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans..may choose to call me; but I have no country. 1841 Borrow Gipsies of Spain (1843) I. 38, I arrived at the resting place of ‘certain Bohemians’ by whom I was received with kindness. |
3. A gipsy of society; one who either cuts himself off, or is by his habits cut off, from society for which he is otherwise fitted; especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free, vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he frequents, and despising conventionalities generally. (Used with considerable latitude, with or without reference to morals.)
| 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair lxiv, She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstances. 1862 Westm. Rev. July & Oct. 32–33 The term ‘Bohemian’ has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits..A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art. 1865 Cornh. Mag. Feb. 241 There are many blackguards who are Bohemians, but it does not at all follow that every Bohemian is a blackguard. 1875 Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims x. 256 In persons open to the suspicion of irregular and immoral living,—in Bohemians. |
4. Comb., as Bohemian-like.
| 1886 Cyclists Tour. Club Handbk. Apr. 5 The Bohemian-like contempt he harbours for all conventionalities. |
B. adj.
1. Of or belonging to Bohemia.
2. Of or pertaining to the gipsies.
| 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair lxv, The band of renowned Bohemian Vaulters and tumblers. |
3. Of, or characteristic of, social Bohemians.
| 1861 Thackeray Philip v. in Cornh. Mag. Feb. 186 Having..only lately quitted the Bohemian land. 1865 Trollope Belton Est. i. 3 The young man commenced Bohemian life in London. 1881 Saintsbury Dryden 105 Smith, the Bohemian author of Phaedra and Hippolytus. |
4. Comb., as Bohemian chatterer, or waxwing, a bird of passage visiting Great Britain (Ampelis or Bombycilla garrula); Bohemian glass, a fine kind of glass, originally made in Bohemia, in which potash is the alkali used.
| 1722 Barrington in Phil. Trans. LXII. 316, I always conceived the Bohemian chatterer was not observed in Great Britain but at very distant intervals of years. 1841 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club. I. 252 That beautiful member of the Ampelidæ, the Bohemian waxwing (Bombycilla garrula). 1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sc. Chem. 433 Potash glass is less subject to crack..Bohemian glass is of this kind. |