Dictionary

soigné en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /swɑːˈnjeɪ/ (UK)
• /ˈswɑː.njeɪ/ (UK)
• /swɑˈnjeɪ/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from French soigné, past participle of soigner. Doublet of soigneur.

Meanings

1. Fashionable and elegant, well-groomed.
   • Custom Java apps and CU-SeeMe feeds will provide interaction with the battery of soigné psychics. 1997 February 20, Steve Silberman, “Burroughs Pops Online Cherry with Drag Queens”, in Wired:
   • The gleaming black stone floors of the lobby, the soigné pink-and-white awnings that shaded the beachfront Mai Tai Bar and Surf Room, the spacious lawns and gardens with the oldest and tallest coconut trees anywhere…all were touchstones for everything good about Hawaiian hospitality, for everything that was ever truly well done in Waikīkī. 2009 March 18, Curt Sanburn, “Where’s the Pink?”, in Honolulu Weekly, archived from the original on 05 Jan 2010:
   • Inspired surely by the old socialist slogan "from cradle to grave," the soigné French health ministry will now also take care of the French in bed. 1998 March 20, “The Tickled French”, in Wall Street Journal Online, Dow Jones & Company:
   • But a graceful scoop here, a soigné knot there, and voilà: Aphrodite meets the Eiffel Tower. 2009 March 14, Vanessa Friedman, “Trends at Paris fashion week”, in Financial Times, London:
   • He's in line behind a gaggle of young-looking women, skinny and soigné in cocktail gowns and tiaras lifted from 1920s silent movies. 2005 July 5, Charles Stross, Accelerando, →ISBN, archived from the original on 27 Jan 2012, chapter 8, paragraph 2365:
   • Always, he radiated an air of soigné self-confidence: he could be amiable in his opinions or waspish, but he never betrayed a flicker of doubt about what he thought. 1997, Henry Louis Gates Jr., “The Passing of Anatole Broyard”, in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, New York: Random House, page 181:

Forms

Relateds

soigneur