Word.ws English Dictionary

petits maîtres

petits maîtres is the plural 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

Questions about petits maîtres

What is petits maîtres the plural of?
Petits maîtres is the plural of petit maître.

Words near petits maîtres in the dictionary

  1. petits
  2. Petits Bassets Griffons Vendéens
  3. petits fours
  4. petits gateaux
  5. petits gâteaux
  6. petits maîtres
  7. petits pois
  8. petits soupers
  9. petits-chevaux
  10. petits-maîtres
  11. Petitt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petits maîtres (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: “petits maîtres.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/petits_ma%C3%AEtres. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.