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Chic , meaning "stylish" or "smart", is an element of fashion. ==Etymology== ''Chic'' is a French word, established in English since at least the 1870s. Early references in English dictionaries classified it as slang and New Zealand-born lexicographer Eric Partridge noted, with reference to its colloquial meaning, that it was "not so used in Fr()."〔''Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'', several ed 1937–61.〕 Gustave Flaubert notes in ''Madame Bovary'' (published in 1856) that "chicard" (one who is chic) is then Parisian very current slang for "classy" noting, perhaps derisively, perhaps not, that it was bourgeoisie. There is a similar word in German, ''schick'', with a meaning similar to ''chic'', which may be the origin of the word in French; another theory links ''chic'' to the word ''chicane''. Although the French pronunciation (shēk or "sheek") is now virtually standard and was that given by Fowler,〔''Modern English Usage'', 1926〕 ''chic'' was often rendered in the anglicised form of "chick".〔An example was in Simon Raven's ''Edward and Mrs Simpson'' (Thames, 1978), a television drama based on the events leading to the Abdication crisis of 1936, when the leader of the Labour Party, Clement Attlee (played by Patrick Troughton), used the word slightly contemptuously during a meeting with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (David Waller).〕 In a fictional vignette for ''Punch'' (''c''. 1932) Mrs F. A. Kilpatrick attributed to a young woman who 70 years later would have been called a "chavette" the following assertion: "It 'asn't go no buttons neither ... That's the latest ideer. If you want to be chick you just 'ang on to it, it seems".〔''Round the Year with Mr Punch'', vol XIX〕 By contrast, in Anita Loos' novel, ''Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'' (1925), the diarist Lorelei Lee recorded that "the French use the word 'sheik' for everything, while we only seem to use if for gentlemen when they seem to resemble Rudolf Valentino" (a pun derived from the latter's being the star of the 1921 silent film, ''The Sheik''). The Oxford Dictionary gives the comparative and superlative forms of ''chic'' as ''chicer'' and ''chicest''. These are wholly English words: the French equivalents would be ''plus chic'' and ''le/la plus chic''. ''Super-chic'' is sometimes used: "super-chic Incline bucket in mouth-blown, moulded glass".〔''Times Magazine'', 8 July 2006〕 An adverb ''chicly'' has also appeared: "Pamela Gross ... turned up chicly dressed down".〔''Tatler'', May 2006〕 The use of the French ''très chic'' (very chic) by an English speaker – "Luckily it's ''très'' chic to be neurotic in New York"〔Plum Sykes (2004) ''Bergdorf Blondes''〕 – is usually rather pretentious, but sometimes merely facetious—Micky Dolenz of The Monkees described ironically the Indian-style suit he wore at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 as ''"très chic"''.〔Micky Dolenz & Mark Bego (1993) ''I'm a Believer''〕 ''Über-chic'' is roughly the mock-German equivalent: "Like his clubs, it's super-modern, über-chic, yet still comfortable".〔''Times Magazine'', 24 June 2006〕 The opposite of "chic" is ''unchic'': "the then uncrowded, unchic little port of St Tropez".〔Peter Lewis (1978) ''The Fifties''〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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