boulevardier

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French boulevardier, from boulevard +‎ -ier.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌbʊləvɑɹˈdɪɹ/, /ˌbʊləvɑɹˈdjeɪ/, /ˌbu-/
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Noun

boulevardier (plural boulevardiers)

1. A man who frequents the boulevards; thus, a man about town or bon vivant.
   • 1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 20:

     Sitting alone at his window-seat, he was like an old boulevardier fallen on hard times, waspish, inward, slothful.

   • 2007 August 19, Alex Marshall, “The Extreme Boulevardier”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     The 19th century was the age of the flaneur and the boulevardier, figures who made strolling down Fifth Avenue or Broadway, often vividly attired, a fashionable activity worthy of their counterparts in Paris or London.

2. (often capitalized) An alcoholic drink similar to a negroni but made with bourbon instead of gin.
   • 2018 September 1, Albert W. A. Schmid, How to Drink Like a Mobster: Prohibition-Style Cocktails, Indiana University Press, →ISBN:

     The boulevardier is a fun drink. Similar to the negroni, the boulevardier features bourbon as the spirit instead of gin for the negroni. To be clear, they are different drinks but at the same time similar. […]

   • 2018 December 6, Tristan Stephenson, The Curious Bartender Volume II: The New Testament of Cocktails, Ryland Peters & Small, →ISBN:

     Make no bones about it, if you were drinking a Boulevardier at Harry's in 1920, you were also drinking in a few hundred litres of smoke-filled air alongside it. […]

   • 2021 October 4, Patrick Evans-Hylton, Virginia Distilled: Four Centuries of Drinking in the Old Dominion, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 176:

     On the revival menu: boulevardiers, martinis, Manhattans, negronis, old fashioneds and more.

   • 2022 June 28, Ann McMan, Dead Letters from Paradise, Bywater Books, →ISBN:

     "We're drinking Boulevardiers."

Synonyms

• man about town
• flaneur

Coordinate terms

• mall rat

Translations

a man who frequents the boulevards

• French: boulevardier (fr) m, boulevardière (fr) f
• Romanian: bulevardier (ro) m

See also

• bon vivant
• dandy

Verb

boulevardier (third-person singular simple present boulevardiers, present participle boulevardiering, simple past and past participle boulevardiered)

1. (intransitive) To strut or show off like a boulevardier.
   • 1914, Robert Page Lincoln, "Wood Hollow Days", Chapter VI, Forest and Stream (83) (Dec 5, 1914) p. 739

     One spectacular being clothed liked a boulevardiering cavalier and having the mein of a finished chesterfieldian gentleman was noted seated in an oak near the cabin one day. ... It was a northern butcher-bird, the aggressive shrike ....

   • 1999 May 1, Bruce Dundore, “The Eagle Has Landed”, in Advertising Age:

     It's safe to say that the baby boom generation is the most self-obsessed group of people ever to have boulevardiered the planet.

   • 2010, Chris Moss, 1000 Great Holiday Ideas (Time Out Books) p. 110

     For that quick romantic getaway, a weekend in the city of love, especially in spring or autumn, still delivers in terms of candlelit bistros, afternoons in cafés and boulevardiering in the Marais.

French

Adjective

boulevardier (feminine boulevardière, masculine plural boulevardiers, feminine plural boulevardières)

1. (relational) boulevardier

Noun

boulevardier m (plural boulevardiers, feminine boulevardière)

1. boulevardier

Further reading

• “boulevardier”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Swedish

Noun

boulevardier c

1. boulevardier (cocktail)