Meanings
plural boulevardiers
- A man who frequents the boulevards; thus, a man about town or bon vivant.
Sitting alone at his window-seat, he was like an old boulevardier fallen on hard times, waspish, inward, slothful.
1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 201 more example
The 19th century was the age of the flaneur and the boulevardier, figures who made strolling down Fifth Avenue or Broadway, often vividly attired, a fashionable activity worthy of their counterparts in Paris or London.
2007 August 19, Alex Marshall, “The Extreme Boulevardier”, in New York Times - capitalizedoftenA cocktail similar to a negroni but made with bourbon instead of gin.
"We're drinking Boulevardiers."
2022 June 28, Ann McMan, Dead Letters from Paradise, Bywater Books, →ISBN3 more examples
The boulevardier is a fun drink. Similar to the negroni, the boulevardier features bourbon as the spirit instead of gin for the negroni. To be clear, they are different drinks but at the same time similar.[…]
2018 September 1, Albert W. A. Schmid, How to Drink Like a Mobster: Prohibition-Style Cocktails, Indiana University Press, →ISBNMake no bones about it, if you were drinking a Boulevardier at Harry's in 1920, you were also drinking in a few hundred litres of smoke-filled air alongside it.[…]
2018 December 6, Tristan Stephenson, The Curious Bartender Volume II: The New Testament of Cocktails, Ryland Peters & Small, →ISBNOn the revival menu: boulevardiers, martinis, Manhattans, negronis, old fashioneds and more.
2021 October 4, Patrick Evans-Hylton, Virginia Distilled: Four Centuries of Drinking in the Old Dominion, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 176
present singular third person boulevardiers · participle present boulevardiering · participle past boulevardiered · past boulevardiered
- intransitiveTo strut or show off like a boulevardier.
It's safe to say that the baby boom generation is the most self-obsessed group of people ever to have boulevardiered the planet.
1999 May 1, Bruce Dundore, “The Eagle Has Landed”, in Advertising Age2 more examples
One spectacular being clothed liked a boulevardiering cavalier and having the mein of a finished chesterfieldian gentleman was noted seated in an oak near the cabin one day. ... It was a northern butcher-bird, the aggressive shrike ....
1914, Robert Page Lincoln, "Wood Hollow Days", Chapter VI, Forest and Stream (83) (Dec 5, 1914) p. 739For that quick romantic getaway, a weekend in the city of love, especially in spring or autumn, still delivers in terms of candlelit bistros, afternoons in cafés and boulevardiering in the Marais.
2010, Chris Moss, 1000 Great Holiday Ideas (Time Out Books) p. 110Synonyms: flaunt, ostentate, swagger, aura farm, cut a wide swath, cut it fat, cut round, exhibitionize
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo strut or show off like a boulevardier.
Origin
- Frenchboulevardier
- Englishboulevardier
Borrowed from French boulevardier, from boulevard + -ier.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French boulevardier, boulevardière
- boulevardiera man who frequents the boulevards
- boulevardièrea man who frequents the boulevards
Polish lew salonowy
- lew salonowya man who frequents the boulevards
Romanian bulevardier
- bulevardiera man who frequents the boulevards
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with boulevardier
Cite this entry
boulevardier. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boulevardier
“boulevardier.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boulevardier. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “boulevardier,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boulevardier.
Source: boulevardier on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.