cicisbeo means A man who escorts a married woman to social functions, especially in 18th-century Italy; a married woman's lover. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
CICISBEO — [Noun] A man serving as the recognized gallant and social escort of a married woman, a formalized custom of 18th-century Italy. Borrowed from Italian cicisbeo, a word of onomatopoeic origin, perhaps imitative of whispering or intimate chatter. Unlike "lover" (which implies a private, transgressive passion) or "cavalier servente" (which suggests a more generic, servile attendance), the cicisbeo occupied a publicly acknowledged, socially codified niche. He was the ever-present figure at the opera, leaning to translate the libretto; the deft hand assisting her from the carriage; the patient audience for her embroidery-frame monologues—a walking, talking monument to the elegant, melancholy compromises of arranged society, where the appearance of romance was cultivated with such public fervor that its private reality became soporifically beside the point.
noun
- A man who escorts a married woman to social functions, especially in 18th-century Italy; a married woman's lover.“My old Cicisbee says it would do: & he is (or was poor fellow!) a famous Scholar.”