Second Empire

Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to Second Empire: Second Empire architecture

Second Empire

A heavily ornate style of furniture, architecture, and decoration that was developed in France in the middle of the 1800s.

[After Second Empire, the reign of Napoleon III, the next empire after that of Napoleon I.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Second Empire

1. (Historical Terms)

a. the imperial government of France under Napoleon III

b. the period during which this government functioned (1852–70)

2. (Furniture) the style of furniture and decoration of the Second Empire, reviving the Empire style, but with fussier ornamentation

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Second Empire

An ornate nineteenth-century French style.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

Second Empire - the imperial government of Napoleon III in France from 1852-1870

empire - a monarchy with an emperor as head of state

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

That again got overlaid by the sans-facon of a grande dame of the Second Empire.

I looked at her from time to time thinking: She has seen slavery, she has seen the Commune, she knows two continents, she has seen a civil war, the glory of the Second Empire, the horrors of two sieges; she has been in contact with marked personalities, with great events, she has lived on her wealth, on her personality, and there she is with her plumage unruffled, as glossy as ever, unable to get old: - a sort of Phoenix free from the slightest signs of ashes and dust, all complacent amongst those inanities as if there had been nothing else in the world.

View in context

Mingott, who had built her house later, had bodily cast out the massive furniture of her prime, and mingled with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of the Second Empire. It was her habit to sit in a window of her sitting-room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly for life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors.

View in context

SPOTFORM: 1 Cape Verdi, 2 Gulland, 3 King Of Kings, 4 Second Empire

THEY ALL FEAR CAPE; Verdi will turn on girl power in the Derby

Aidan O'Brien is considering the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at The Curragh on May 23 as the starting point for Second Empire, who will be out to make amends for a luckless campaign at the top level last year.

Second Empire hits trail at The Curragh

After saddling a double at Tipperary, he explained his fears about the stamina of King of Kings and Second Empire, but stressed that all three colts are in top form.

O'Brien in search of glory at Epsom

Following these restoration works, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Theatre will represent a museographic space dedicated to the performing arts and decorative arts of the Second Empire.

French theatre built in 1856 is renamed after Sheikh Khalifa

This study explores the ideas of modernity and modernization that contributed to the Second Empire and the early Third Republic in 19th-century France and Algeria.

The Cult of the Modern: Trans-Mediterranean France and the Construction of French Modernity

Critics of the Second Empire regime were just as scathing about the period's aesthetics.

The age of Folly

Second Empire, second in Epsom's Derby Trial, and Tannaaf can also get involved.

NEWSBOY SAYS.. HANS HOLBEIN has [...]

The exterior is Second Empire style and features an English basement.

Satish Thakersey and Ann Morrell at Citi Habitats have just listed this single family townhouse at 132 East 38th Street in Murray Hill for $3.5 million