chic
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Borrowed from French chic (“elegant”), which in turn is probably borrowed from German Schick (“elegant appearance; tasteful presentation”). The word is akin to Dutch schielijk (“hasty”), schikken (“to arrange”) and Old English sċēon (“to happen”).
Inflected forms:
form: chicer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more chic
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: chicest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most chic
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: chics
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Elegant, stylish.
pos: adj
examples: Mrs. Hominy, sir, is the lady of Major Hominy, one of our chicest spirits; and belongs Toe^([sic]) one of our most aristocratic families.
As he wisht to micks with the very chicest sosaity, and git the best of infmation about this country, Munseer Jools of coarse went and lodgd in Lester Square— […]
There are chic Cercles; or rather, there is only one, the Jockey Club. Why? Nobody can tell. Other Cercles are just as select, as exclusive, as well constituted, but not so chic. […] [T]he Jockey Club is so extremely chic, that many people consider the fact of belonging to it not as an ordinary circumstance, but as a dignity.
What is chic may, in a sense, be fashionable, but what is fashionable cannot be chic. Anybody can wear and do what is fashionable. It is not fashionable unless a lot of people do it, and have it on—until, in three words that grate rather upon the ear, in this connection, it is common. Chic cannt be common.
The hair is actually cut about the ears like that of the quaint Dutch children from the little Island of Martken. This style of coiffure gives to the grown child a chic appearance and naive insouciance that is very fascinating. The hair is worn, either parted on the side or in the middle, and is held with a jeweled band or a fillet of ribbon which is most effective. It seems a fashion not likely to be adopted to any great extent by really smart women, although La Valliere, the chic little Parisian actress, is fascinating in this style of head-dress, […]
For Murray Marks he [Richard Norman Shaw] designed a chic Oxford Street shopfront for the display of 'pots' (1875–6), […]
Spanish Manchego cheese seems so much chicer than cheddar, but either pairs well with almonds, dried fruit, and rice crackers.
gloss: Good form; style.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: A little pear-grey glove, dropped and abandoned on the floor, may give its owner's sex and chic to the whole room; whilst an entire house-full of so-called womanly trifles will have only a neuter flavour about them, if chic be not there.
You can be assured that whatever article of wearable chic you pick-up at this Newbury St. shop, you will not see it walking up and down the streets a hundred times.
[T]he macabre, when celebrated with the panache of a new range of retailed products, became a glib manifestation of chic: […]
Terms such as "ghetto chic" and "gangsta' chic" are part of a cluster of high-fashion terms that describe styles that are in vogue but set against mainstream norms. Other "chics" include "nerd chic," "geek chic," and the controversial "heroin chic," in which models appear as drug addicts […]
gloss: A person with (a particular type of) chic.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: It was probably fortunate for him [Bernard Lazare] that the police, who started keeping a fairly regular watch on his activities in April 1893, also inclined towards thinking that he was merely following the fashion of other young ‘bourgeois chics’ (though at times they evidently had second thoughts).
Striving for admission in those exclusive circles so as to gain higher social recognition and acceptance by the chics, anthropologists who were already subservient to other philosophical musings such as hermeneutics and phenomenology, started to upgrade their language and to treat cultures as "texts".
The potheads were either smoking or eating or giggling or some combination of the three. The heroin chics were nodding out.
Antonyms: dowdy
inelegant
unelegant
unchic
unfashionable
unstylish
Translations: