• (RP) IPA: /ˈdɛmiːmɒnd/
• (GA) IPA: /ˈdɛmiˌmɑnd/

demimonde (plural demimondes)

1. (chiefly, historical (19th-century France)) A class#Noun|class of women maintained by wealthy protectors; female courtesans or prostitute#Noun|prostitutes as a group.
   • 1920 May 27, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “The Offshore Pirate”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published September 1920, OCLC 623621399 ↗, part I, page 6 ↗:

     This is the last straw. In your infatuation for this man—a man who is notorious for his excesses, a man your father would not have allowed to so much as mention your name—you have reflected the demi-monde rather than the circles in which you have presumably grown up.

2. (by extension) A group having little respect#Noun|respect or reputation.

   the literary demimonde

3. (by extension) A member of such a class or group of persons.

• demimondaine

• French: demi-monde
• German: Milieu
• Russian: демимонденки

• German: Halbwelt