Bon Viveur

By Deane Barker • • tags: definition •
Updates
This content has been updated 2 times since it was first published. The last update happened .

Definition: a person who likes going to parties and other social occasions and who enjoys good food, wine, etc.

Why I Looked It Up

I was reading about the actor Wilfrid Hyde-White:

Hyde-White had a reputation as a bon viveur, and in 1979 he was declared bankrupt […]

Update

Added on

I ran into the term “bon vivant” in Monsters:

I was confronted with this idea when I watched an old documentary that Stephen Fry, the perpetually delightful actor and bon vivant (how rarely one gets to use that term with any accuracy!)…

The definition for “bon vivant” reads:

a sociable person who has cultivated and refined tastes especially with respect to food and drink

Sounds like the same thing. I ran both through a translator:

  • bon vivant is “good living”
  • bon viveur didn’t translate, but “viveur” itself translated as “vivacious”

Update

Added on

I didn’t note the book, but I have this quote in my notes:

Tesla was a dapper bon vivant, six and a half feet tall. He spent every cent on the good life. He cultivated rich and famous friends…

Links from this – Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma June 17, 2023
This is a book that I probably read for the wrong reasons, and a book that I was ultimately unsatisfied with. But in the book’s defense, it could never succeed at what I wanted from it. This is a book that asks the question: What do we do with the art of monstrous men? That question above was...