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RECENT POSTSminauderie
mee-nod-YAER
noun
a contrived and unnatural show or display; affectation
1823Peveril of the PeakJulian was under the necessity of enduring all her tiresome and fantastic airs, and awaiting with patience till she had 'prinked herself and pinned herself'—flung her hoods back, and drawn them forward—snuffed at a little bottle of essences—closed her eyes like a dying fowl—turned them up like duck in a thunderstorm; when at length, having exhausted her round of minauderies, she condescended to open the conversation.1850The History of Pendennis, his Fortunes and Misfortunes, his Friends and his greatest Enemy...what a pretty natural manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minauderies of the young ladies in the ballrooms.1853Villette'There is no time to be lost,' he went on, now speaking in French; 'and let us thrust to the wall all reluctance, all excuses, all minauderies. You must take a part.'1884A Perilous Secret'Connu ,' said Hope, 'voyons ca;' and in a minute repaired the article, and the girl spread it, and went off wriggling and mincing with it, so that there was a pronounced horse-laugh at her minauderies.1885Letter to William Archer (18 October 1885)Again, your first remark upon the affectation of the italic names; a practice only followed in my two affected little books of travel, where a typographical minauderies of the sort appeared to me in character; and what you say of it, then, is quite just.Labels: Charles Reade, Charlotte Bronte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray
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