arbiter elegantiarum
English
Etymology
From Latin arbiter (“judge”) + elegantiarum (“of elegance”), originally applied to Petronius in the court of Nero.
Noun
arbiter elegantiarum
- An authority on manners or etiquette.
- 1779, Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets:
- We had many books to teach us our more important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or politicks ; but an Arbiter Elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet wanting, who should survey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which teaze the passer, though they do not wound him.
- 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vintage 2007, p. 114:
- in his inmost heart he desired to be something more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a cane.
- 2004, James T. Monroe, Hispano-Arabic Poetry, page 7:
- Modernism had been brought from the court of Hārūn ar-Rashīd by Ziryāb, the Persian singer who became an arbiter elegantiarum in the provincial capital of al-Andalus.
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Translations
authority on manners or etiquette
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