It is from the French word poseur, and from the Old French word poser, meaning 'to put, place, or set'. The word in English use dates back to the mid 19th Century. The English term 'poseur' is a loanword from French. In the ancient Greek comedy The Clouds, the playwright Aristophanes portrays Socrates as a 'poseur'. The whole point of the creature is that he is unique, fantastic, unrepresentative, inimitable, impossible, undesirable on any large scale, utterly unlike anybody that ever existed before, hopelessly unnatural, and void of real passion.'

The playwright and critic, George Bernard Shaw, has been described as a poseur in that context Shaw is quoted as saying, 'I have never pretended that G.B.S. His fame as an artist seemed to require that he present himself as a poseur. It has been suggested that Whistler's genius lay partly in his ability to cultivate the role of the poseur, to 'act as if he were always on stage', in order to stir interest, and cause people to wonder how such a poseur could create work that was so serious and authentic. Whistler has been sometimes described as a 'poseur' for his manner and personal style. Lord Alfred Douglas said of Wilde, 'That he had what passed for genius nobody will, I think, nowadays dispute, though it used to be the fashion to pooh-pooh him for a mere poseur and decadent.' Thomas Hardy said of him, 'His early reputation as a poseur and fop – so necessary to his notoriety – recoiled upon the scholar and gentleman (as Wilde always innately was), and even upon the artist'. The playwright Oscar Wilde has been described as a 'poseur'. Oscar Wilde (right) and Lord Alfred Douglas

Definition of poser