man about town

See also: man-about-town

English

Alternative forms

• man-about-town

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

man about town (plural men about town)

1. A worldly, social man who frequents fashionable places.

   Synonyms: boulevardier, flaneur

   Coordinate terms: bon vivant, dandy, socialite

   • 1886, Punch, volume 91, page 249:

     For in this quality of “clubbable,” and the value now put upon it, lies the whole secret of change in our fast men, mashers, and men about town.

   • 1902, W. Somerset Maugham, Mrs Craddock, 1992 penguin Classics ed., →ISBN, page 71:

     To Bertha this was a charm rather than a defect; his bashful candour touched her, and she compared it favourably with the foolish worldliness of the imaginary man about town whose dissipation she always opposed to her husband's virtues.

Further reading

• “man about town”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.