Précieuses Ridicules (in Molière’s comedy so called)

Aminte and Polixène, who assume the airs of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, a coterie of savants of both sexes in the seventeenth century. The members of this society were termed précieuses—i.e. “persons of distinguished merit”—and the précieuses ridicules means a ridiculous apeing of their ways and manners.