honnête hommen.

1666 G. Savill Let. 5 Feb. in W. Temple Wks. (1720) II. 126 I find his Majesty of France will be an angry enemy. He doth not declare War, like an honnête homme.

1697 R. Gale tr. L. Jobert Knowl. Medals 61 A certain Air and Character of the Honneste homme,..which particularly appears by the Respect wherewith he treats those whose Sentiments he cannot approve.

1709 J. Swift Let. 13 Nov. in H. Ellis Orig. Lett. Eminent Literary Men (1843) 341 I ever thought it a mighty oversight in Courts to let the honnete homme, the homme d'esprit, and homme de bien, gain ground among them.

1838 J. J. Holroyd tr. G. E. Lessing Minna von Barnhelm ii. xi, in Three Comedies 238 What ressource [sic] is left for an honnête homme of my extraction, but play?

1852 F. P. Guizot Corneille & his Times 317 It was essential that the honnête homme should always be able to adapt himself to the tone of the society in which he might happen to be placed.

1873 Hampsh. Advertiser 15 Mar. To be an ‘honnête homme’ as the phrase then [sc. in the seventeenth century] went..it was essential to pay attentions to some lady who accepted this homage.

1923 C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards Meaning of Meaning i. 21 The honnête homme may be unprepared for the lengths to which verbal ingenuity can be carried.

1960 J. Bayley Characters of Love iii. 131 Iago..is in many ways a terrible parody of the Augustan honnête homme.

2001 L. Tiersen Marianne in Market 332 The notion of the ‘honnête homme’ had its roots in the aristocratic courtly ideal of the seventeenth century, connoting the courtier steeped in the moral and literary traditions of humanism.