petit maître
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From French petit-maître.
Noun[edit]
petit maître (plural petits maîtres)
- (now chiefly archaic) A fop or dandy. [from 18th c.]
- 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:
- The unfortunate petit maitre, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly refinement […] .
- (chiefly derogatory) A lesser master of something, especially of some artistic skill; a minor talent. [from 19th c.]
- 1979, Angela Carter, “Latin Rhythms”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 563:
- Monstrous critical overkill of an even more up-market kind has transformed the Argentinian petit maître, Borges, into one of the Great Writers of our Time and his most recent collection, The Book of Sand […] shows signs that he is content humbly to acquiesce in this opinion.
- 2015 November 15, Laura Cumming, The Guardian:
- The point of this survey is to present Calder as a giant of modernism instead of a petit-maître of whimsical toys.