mixed company
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English[edit]
Noun[edit]
- Men and women, both present at a gathering.
- 1880, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 5, in Clever Woman of the Family:
- "Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration . . . ."
"Perhaps the bearings of the question would hardly suit mixed company."
- 1908, B. M. Bower, chapter 3, in The Long Shadow:
- "Took 'er home all right, did yuh?" he leered, as if they two were in possession of a huge joke of the kind which may not be told in mixed company.
- 1950 May, “A Tunisian Electric Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 335:
- Travel is enlivened not only by the mixed company of French, Berbers, Arabs, and descendants of the Mediterranean-Corsairs who sit together indiscriminately, but also by itinerant vendors of macaroons, sweetmeats and the like, who, as long as they have a travel ticket, ply their wares unhindered by the [ticket] collectors.
- 2001 June 24, Leon Jaroff, “The Man's Cancer”, in Time:
- "Fifteen or 20 years ago, you couldn't even mention the word prostate in polite mixed company."
- 2004, Stella Starsky, Quinn Cox, Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, page 189:
- Only a Cancer female can describe in mixed company a night spent with a lover and a double-sided dildo without a sniff of shame or irony.
Usage notes[edit]
- Often used to indicate a social situation in which rude or other unseemly behavior is especially inappropriate.
References[edit]
- “mixed company”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.