cleft habitus

noun

A sense of dislocation experienced when one's life conditions change drastically, for example through social mobility.

OriginFrench habitus clivé →
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Meanings

noun
  1. human sciencesA sense of dislocation experienced when one's life conditions change drastically, for example through social mobility.
    1 more example

    Bourdieu's idea of “cleft habitus”—a split between the world you come from and the one you enter—helps explain the resentment we see in Vance, who has written about feeling anxious over not knowing which fork to use at Yale […], and about being silently judged by people who seem to belong in a world he only pretends to understand.

    2025 May 24, Nancy Kolff-Rodriguez, “The irony is it takes two Frenchmen to explain Maga”, in FT Weekend (Letters section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8

Origin

  1. Frenchhabitus clivé
  2. Englishcleft habitus

Calque of French habitus clivé, coined by French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu.

More words from French

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

cleft habitus. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cleft%20habitus

MLA

“cleft habitus.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cleft%20habitus. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cleft habitus,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cleft%20habitus.

Source: cleft habitus on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.