finishing school

English

Alternative forms

• finishing-school

Noun

finishing school (plural finishing schools)

1. (dated) A private school intended to furnish young women with the social skills and cultural education needed in order to fulfill successfully a woman's traditional role in polite society.
   • 1875, Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins, ch. 4,

     "All she needs is a year or two at a fashionable finishing school, so that at eighteen she can come out with éclat," put in Aunt Clara.

   • 1998, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science, Carol Publishing Group, page 3, [1]

     Until the 1920s, most European high schools for girls were finishing schools.

Synonyms

• charm school

References

• "finishing school" at OneLook® Dictionary Search.