NOUN
- the obligation of those of high rank to be honorable and generous (often used ironically)
How To Use noblesse oblige In A Sentence
- And she looked at me with kind of beatific smile and said, ‘Yes, it's his sense of noblesse oblige.’
- But with personal greed subsuming any sense of noblesse oblige or the national interest, it is time the hallowed romance of titled wealth was dispelled.
- His public image was the personification of noblesse oblige, a wholesome and vigorous young president with a beautiful wife and young children.
- So do think this over carefully over the weekend-especially for the sake of the company-noblesse oblige and all that!
- From that moment she felt as strongly as any Gorgie ever felt the fine sentiment expressed in the phrase, _noblesse oblige_; and to hear her say, 'I'm a duke's chavi Aylwin
- The expression "noblesse oblige" is difficult to define but its implications are precise and clear. Philip S. Hench - Banquet Speech
- The French have another word, noblesse oblige, which is translated as those who enjoy the advantage of wealth and power have an obligation to protect those who do not have these advantages. My Sinchew -
- They are proud to transmit their title untarnished to their descendants, are ready to make serious sacrifices in its behalf, to exercise the rigid self-denials of family control for its sake, and to engrave the motto of "noblesse oblige" on their hearts in order to sustain it; but they bitterly complain that without the majorat, and the transmission of outward, visible supports in land and houses to strengthen it, the empty sound carries little weight. The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Vol. III. (of IV.)
- He started to give an absurd speech about how offended he was by the word "sandbagged" and how there was such a thing as courtesy and "noblesse oblige" and that the board deserved to hear the school district out. Save John Swett
- They did so without hope of further profit and out of a sense of noblesse oblige.