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Glite Dictionary
Left Bank

Left Bank

2 5.8
An area of Paris on the southern side of the Seine known for artists, writers, and cafes
  • proper noun
translation icon : Rive Gauche
  • I thought we might have lunch at a little restaurant on the Left Bank.
  • the Left Bank in Paris
  • Left Bank bistro
  • Left Bank café

Already early on the French king decided that the university would be on the Left Bank and commerce would be on the right bank.

Examples

  • As Claude Burgelin insists, Perec was by no means as isolated from the intellectual life of the Left Bank as he often chose to appear.

    Academic text (2009)

  • Sweet, small French hotel on a winding cobblestone street of the Left Bank.

  • Already early on the French king decided that the university would be on the Left Bank and commerce would be on the right bank.

    MIT OpenCourseWare

  • She lives on the Left Bank.

    Love in the Afternoon (1957)

  • Sweet, small French hotel on a winding cobblestone street of the Left Bank.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • In the winter of 1865, Monet and Bazille shared a studio at 6, Rue de Furstenberg, on a small street on the Left Bank, not far from Delacroix's final studio but quite a distance.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Moving to a small studio in Notre Dame des Champs on the Left Bank, a popular area for many other American women artists, Klumpke began her formal art education under the strict criticism of the masters Tony Robert Fleury and Jules Lefebvre.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • I thought we might have lunch at a little restaurant on the Left Bank.

  • We met him on the Left Bank in Paris.

Synonyms

Rive Gauche
vsLeft Bank
8.1

The south bank of the Seine in Paris where cafes, bookshops, artists, and students gather

is the same area but stresses long tradition and literary activity

Surface Forms

Left Bank main

Morphology

left + bank

The literal locational sense — a river bank on the left side — is directly derivable from 'left' + 'bank', so a learner can infer it denotes a riverside area. However, the specific conventionalized toponym referring to Paris's southern bank and its cultural/artistic associations is encyclopedic knowledge not predictable from the constituents alone, making the expression only partially transparent.

Etymology

Left Bank comes from the fact that it is the left bank of the River Seine, the southern side of Paris. Because many artists, writers and students lived and met there in the 19th and 20th centuries, Left Bank came to mean the city's creative, 'bohemian' area.