Minauderie

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Affectation; an affected remark or behaviour. countable, uncountable

    "“What a nice little artless creature that was,” Mr. Pen thought at the very instant of waking after the Vauxhall affair; “what a pretty natural manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minauderies of the young ladies in the ballrooms” […]"

  2. 2
    Alternative spelling of minaudière. alt-of, alternative

    "[…] handbags are smaller than they have been for years. Some of them resemble minauderies, others look like large flat purses. Large bags are still fashionable, but in flat zipped shapes or made on a neat, flat-looking metal frame[…]"

Example

More examples

"“What a nice little artless creature that was,” Mr. Pen thought at the very instant of waking after the Vauxhall affair; “what a pretty natural manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minauderies of the young ladies in the ballrooms” […]"

Etymology

From French minauderie.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.