Loading page
Syllable division and stress derived from spelling — this word is not in the pronouncing dictionary, so no phonetic transcription is shown rather than a guessed one.
parvenu is an adjective and noun meaning "characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position". It carries 3 recorded senses.
characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position
of or characteristic of a parvenu
a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for parvenu come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.