‖ précieux, a. (n.)
(presj{obar})
[Fr.]
= precious a. 3. Also as n. Cf. précieuse n. (a.).
| 1891 M. S. van de Velde French Fiction of To-day I. iv. 109 A certain précieux hyper-refinement. 1939 Burlington Mag. Mar. p. xviii/1 The lives of other précieux in the stereotyped social and literary intercourse of the Salons. 1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 63 Arno, Nash, and Thurber are brittle, wistful little précieux beside Capp. 1953 [see baroque a. (n.)]. 1964 Eng. Stud. XLV. 111 As a précieux poet, the Duke [Orsino] is an accomplished master. 1969 Listener 8 May 637/1 There was point in A. C. Benson's defence in 1910 of ‘The May Queen’, that no précieux writer, with a care for his reputation, could have dared to write it... Certainly mid-19th-century literature was not précieux: it took risks. |