Well attestedIndirect, via a person or title
bohemian
noun · first attested 1850s
The word rests on a mistake about where Romani people came from.
A person who lives an unconventional artistic life, usually with little money.
49.8333°N 14.3333°E · Q39193
Record
- Relationship
- Indirect, via a person or title
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1850s
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Bohemia
- In English
bohemian
French bohemien meant a Romani person, because the French believed the Roma had arrived from Bohemia. They had in fact come from northern India. Parisians then applied the label to poor artists and writers thought to live the same way, and Henri Murger's Scenes de la vie de boheme fixed the sense in 1851, later becoming Puccini's La Boheme.
Czech Republic
All 7 entries 6 more words from Czech Republic
dollarThe word traces to a silver mine in the Ore Mountains.JáchymovpilsnerThe world's default beer style is named for a Bohemian city.PlzeňJoachimsthalerThe full form of the word that became dollar.JachymovolomoucineA laboratory compound is named for a Moravian city.OlomoucOlomouc cheeseNamed for Olomouc, but actually made in a small town called Lostice.OlomoucmoldaviteThe stone is named after a Bohemian river, but it was made in Bavaria by a meteorite.Vltava