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/ˈpɜːljuː/ · noun
(historical) The ground on the edges of a forest, especially when partly subject to the same forest laws concerning game hunting etc..
I wanted a beer, but coffee was undeniably easier to be had in the purlieus of the University, so we went into a cafe.
Whether Lady Anne knew or suspected who it was that drew his steps from the purlieus of fashion he knew not, nor held himself bound to explain.
Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus of the Inns of Court, Shepherd’s Inn is always to be found in the close neighbourhood of Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, and the Temple.
He seemed to wish to keep hold of him, and looked at him strangely, over his spectacles... when he learned that Hyacinth had taken a lodging not in their old familiar quarter but in the unexplored purlieus of Westminster.
Wide blank courtyards surround the walls of this marvel, a little town hangs respectfully about its purlieus, and from far away across the plain, even from the streets of Madrid herself, you can see it brooding there on the edge of the mountains, looking at once holy, menacing and obsessed.
The mission occupied eight or ten ares of land, a barren purlieu that held a few goats and burros.
Use purlieu when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Purlieu means (historical) The ground on the edges of a forest, especially when partly subject to the same forest laws concerning game hunting etc..
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
I wanted a beer, but coffee was undeniably easier to be had in the purlieus of the University, so we went into a cafe.
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