mixed company

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English

Noun

mixed company (uncountable)

  1. Men and women, both present at a gathering.
    • 1880, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 5, in Clever Woman of the Family:
      "Imagine my one attempt at rational conversation last night. Asking his views on female emigration . . . ."
      "Perhaps the bearings of the question would hardly suit mixed company."
    • 1908, B. M. Bower, chapter 3, in The Long Shadow:
      "Took 'er home all right, did yuh?" he leered, as if they two were in possession of a huge joke of the kind which may not be told in mixed company.
    • 1950 May, “A Tunisian Electric Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 335:
      Travel is enlivened not only by the mixed company of French, Berbers, Arabs, and descendants of the Mediterranean-Corsairs who sit together indiscriminately, but also by itinerant vendors of macaroons, sweetmeats and the like, who, as long as they have a travel ticket, ply their wares unhindered by the collectors.
    • 2001 June 24, Leon Jaroff, “The Man's Cancer”, in Time:
      "Fifteen or 20 years ago, you couldn't even mention the word prostate in polite mixed company."
    • 2004, Stella Starsky, Quinn Cox, Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, page 189:
      Only a Cancer female can describe in mixed company a night spent with a lover and a double-sided dildo without a sniff of shame or irony.

Usage notes

  • Often used to indicate a social situation in which rude or other unseemly behavior is especially inappropriate.

References

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