beau monde
Fashionable social sphere
Beau monde is the world of high society and fashionable people—those who set trends in dress, manners, and taste.
The French phrase translates literally as "beautiful world." It carries a slightly ironic or distanced tone in English, often used by those observing rather than inhabiting such circles: She longed to join the beau monde of Manhattan's Upper East Side.
- eliteSuperior select group
- European aristocracyHereditary ruling class abroad
- coutureCustom high-fashion design
- gentryHighborn but not noble
- social registerDirectory of elite families
elegance · sophistication · crème de la crème · etiquette · connoisseurship · glamor · grand tour · finishing school · patricians · chic · café society · upper crust · jet set · cosmopolitanism · nobility · landed gentry · exclusivity · leisure class
beau mondethe masses
Common populace collectively
hoi polloi · common people · rabble · riffraff · plebeians
beau mondephilistines
Uncultured, materialistic people
provincials · lowbrows · vulgarians · boors · rubes
beauty, beautiful, beau, beautify, belle, embellishment, beauteous, beaus, monde