Biedermeier

[ bee-der-mahy-er ]

adjective

1. noting or pertaining to a style of furnishings common in German-speaking areas in the early to middle 19th century, generally existing as a simplification of the French Directoire and Empire styles, usually executed in fruitwood with much use of matched veneers, and often displaying architectural motifs.

Biedermeier

/ ˈbiːdəˌmaɪə /

adjective

1. of or relating to a decorative and furnishing style in mid-19th-century Germany, characterized by solidity and conventionality
2. boringly conventional in outlook; bourgeois

Word History and Origins

Origin of Biedermeier¹

Named after Gottlieb Biedermeier, imaginary author of poems actually composed by various writers and published in German magazine Fliegende Blätter from 1855 on

Word History and Origins

Origin of Biedermeier¹

C19: after Gottlieb Biedermeier , a fictitious character portrayed as a conventional unimaginative bourgeois and the author of poems actually written by several satirical poets

Example Sentences

In the Copenhagen captured by 18th-century painters, Nors writes, the “nation’s true nature” could be found: “a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, a Biedermeier idyll, bare of squalls, wilderness and drifting sands.”

From Washington Post

The proportions of the candlesticks, inspired by the domestic objects of the Biedermeier era of early-1800s Europe, are whittled to contemporary perfection.

From Wall Street Journal

Built in the Biedermeier period of the 19th century, his summer residence was a wedding gift from his mother, which he then expanded and remodeled with neoclassical columns and tympana.

From Washington Post

In three out of the six scenarios, things go so well that Europe resembles the Biedermeier era – 1815-1848 – of domestic bliss and military boredom.

From The Guardian

So he chose what he sees as an updated version of a 19th-century Germanic, or Biedermeier, wingback armchair.

From Wall Street Journal