See also: man-about-town

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

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man about town (plural men about town)

  1. A worldly, social man who frequents fashionable places.
    Synonyms: boulevardier, flaneur
    Coordinate terms: bon vivant, dandy, socialite, woman about town
    • 1886, Punch[1], volume 91, page 249:
      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.
    • 1902, W. Somerset Maugham, Mrs Craddock, penguin Classics, published 1992, →ISBN, page 71:
      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.

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