1888 Mrs. H. Ward Robert Elsmere II. iv. xxvi. 285 He was in a mood to be impatient with a mondaine's languid inquiries into clerical work.

1889 E. Dowson Let. 24 Mar. (1967) 55 Here you have the refinement of the mondaine with the independence of the cocotte.

1908 Westm. Gaz. 3 Oct. 13/2 The bold attempt of the milliners to coax mondaines to the smaller hat will be watched with interest.

1920 Q. Rev. July 38 The provocative elegance of the Flavian mondaines.

1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 266 Flatly contemptuous words like kept-woman and call-girl have taken over..from..courtesan, mondaine.

1993 San Francisco Chron. (Nexis) 24 Aug. e3 While I waited for Robert to arrive, I read the brochure: ‘Quaglino's bar with its maple wood..and monochrome mondaines pouting from the walls promotes the right mood.’

1889 E. Dowson Let. c1 Jan. (1967) 23 I will free myself from the intolerable corvée of the mondain dinner.

1896 C. M. Yonge Release ii. viii. 144 Ah! you are mondaine, you are Protestant, madame.

1929 L. Rea Six Mrs. Greenes ii. 58 Lavinia, mondaine, vivid, with a delicate certainty of touch.

1952 R. C. Hutchinson Recoll. of Journey viii. 174 I intended to give the neckline as much of mondaine elegance as the stuff allowed.

1985 V. S. Pritchett Man of Letters 161 The acerbity of a novelist like Mrs Wharton is mondain before it is intellectual.

1990 J. Rose Modigliani (BNC) 133 The contrast between the mondaine world of Beatrice Hastings and the ghetto of Jewish painters from Eastern Europe could hardly have been greater.