Word.ws English Dictionary

petit-maître

petit-maître is the alternative spelling of petit maître.

Meaning of petit maître

Noun

petit maître (plural petits maîtres)

  1. (archaic) A fop or dandy.
    • The unfortunate petit maitre, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly refinement […].1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
  2. (derogatory) A lesser master of something, especially of some artistic skill; a minor talent.
    • Monstrous critical overkill of an even more up-market kind has transformed the Argentinian petit maître, Borges, into one of the Great Writers of our Time and his most recent collection, The Book of Sand […] shows signs that he is content humbly to acquiesce in this opinion.1979, Angela Carter, “Latin Rhythms”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 563

Forms of petit-maître

pluralpetits-maîtres

Questions about petit-maître

What is petit-maître the alternative spelling of?
Petit-maître is the alternative spelling of petit maître.

Words near petit-maître in the dictionary

  1. petit sergeanty
  2. petit serjeanty
  3. petit souper
  4. petit treason
  5. petit-bourgeois
  6. petit-maître
  7. Petitcodiac
  8. petite
  9. petite amie
  10. petite bourgeoisie
  11. petite bourgeoisies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petit-maître (page history and authors); petit maître (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “petit-maître.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/petit-ma%C3%AEtre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.