man about town

plural men about town · alternative man-about-town

1. idiomaticA worldly, social man who frequents fashionable places.

   I'm very much the man about town.

   2 more examples

   For in this quality of “clubbable,” and the value now put upon it, lies the whole secret of change in our fast men, mashers, and men about town.

   1886, Punch, volume 91, page 249

   To Bertha this was a charm rather than a defect; his bashful candour touched her, and she compared it favourably with the foolish worldliness of the imaginary man about town whose dissipation she always opposed to her husband's virtues.

   1902, W. Somerset Maugham, Mrs Craddock, penguin Classics, published 1992, →ISBN, page 71

   Synonyms: boulevardier, flaneur, bon viveur, epicure, epicurean, hedonist, high-stepper, lapling