lace-curtain

[ leys-kur-tn ]

adjective

, Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive.

1. characteristic of or aspiring to the standards and attributes of the middle class:

   Her latest novel traces the rise of a lace-curtain Irish family in Boston.

Example Sentences

Born Katherine Ursula Towle, “lace-curtain Irish” in Dorchester, Mass., and educated at Radcliffe, she longed to be a reporter, and married one, Lindesay Parrott, who later worked for The New York Times.

From New York Times

The flavors may suggest a lace-curtain bistro in Lyon, but the ethereal lightness of the potatoes says Mena, and only Mena.

From New York Times

When Mike climbs the social ladder out of Southie, his old friends mock him as “lace-curtain Irish.”

From Washington Post

It’s THE club to belong to if you live in the lace-curtain sections of the Valley.

From Golf Digest

The New Negroes were hardly alone among aspirational Americans in the pathos and dignity of their respectability; one sees the same attempt to outwit the oppressor by becoming like the oppressor among the lace-curtain Irish or the stained-glass Jews.

From The New Yorker

Related Words

• noble