parvenu

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Chenoweth, who is as gleaming as a holiday ornament on Liberace’s Christmas tree, arrives at a canny balance of quixotic generosity and parvenu carelessness in her portrayal of a woman she refuses to lampoon.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2025

His mother, “born of samurai stock” and married to “a parvenu beneath herself,” succumbed to mental illness six months after Ryunosuke’s birth.

From New York Times • Oct. 12, 2018

Just as the parvenu tries to elevate himself into a higher social realm, the word climber wishes to seem more intelligent than he actually is.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 13, 2017

In 1925, Gatsby’s pink suit marked him as an attention-seeking parvenu; today, you can buy a $996 replica from Brooks Brothers’ new “Gatsby Collection.”

From Slate • May 22, 2013

A parvenu of the middle classes, he was brutal in his treatment of the lower orders and a sycophant in his behaviour towards the powerful; prodigiously active, ill-obeyed—as was the custom—but much dreaded.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 7 "Fox, George" to "France" by Various