Belgravia

B3E1L1G2R1A1V4I1A1
UK/bɛlˈɡɹeɪ.vi.ə/

proper noun

An area in the City of Westminster, central London, noted for being one of the wealthiest districts in the world (OS grid ref TQ2879).

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. An area in the City of Westminster, central London, noted for being one of the wealthiest districts in the world (OS grid ref TQ2879).

    Tuppence's hostel was situated in what was charitably called Southern Belgravia.

    1922, Agatha Christie, chapter 1, in The Secret Adversary
    3 more examples

    Not but that Edith was very thoroughly and properly in love; still she would certainly have preferred a good house in Belgravia, to all the picturesqueness of the life which Captain Lennox described at Corfu.

    1854, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter I, in North and South

    What more exciting than a ruffian (with many admirable virtues) in St. Giles's, visited constantly by a young lady from Belgravia? What more stirring than the contrasts of society?

    1858, William Makepeace Thackeray, A History of Pendennis: His fortunes and misfortunes, his friends and his greatest enemy, Volume 1, Preface

    […] Browning seemed rather in place, as a middle-aged gentlemanly English Pippa Passes; while afterwards, in the light of Belgravia dinner-tables, he never made part of his background except by effacement.

    1918, Henry Adams, chapter 6, in The Education of Henry Adams
  2. Other places named after Belgravia in London:
    1. A locality in the Cabonne council area, central New South Wales, Australia.
    2. A neighbourhood in south-west Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
    3. A suburb of Johannesburg, Gauteng province, South Africa.
    4. A suburb in north Harare, Zimbabwe.

Origin

After Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, whose title was Viscount Belgrave when the area was developed in the 1820s, thus from Belgrave + -ia. The village of Belgrave, Cheshire is close to the Grosvenor family's main country seat.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with Belgravia

ScandinaviabataviaOctaviaMoldaviaMoraviaFlaviaSyldavia
All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

Belgravia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Belgravia

MLA

“Belgravia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Belgravia. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Belgravia,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Belgravia.

Source: Belgravia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.