milieu

noun

1. An environment or setting; a medium; environs

   “Australian cinema is a messy affair. It is a messiness not only in our ways of knowing, reading, consuming and producing films and the larger film-making milieu of which they are a part, but also a messiness among the films themselves […]”

   “In the electronic milieu, accuracy is accomplished by the technology, and the appropriate strategy for judgment is likely to entail ensuring coherence within and across electronic and naturalistic components of the ecology.”

   “The library as solely a physical space will not survive in the digital milieu. Services should be directed towards user needs and desires in the current academic climate.”

   “The question is, then, what is the relationship of biblical narrative to its literary milieu? […] One must simultaneously biblical narrative in light of its clear historical connections to its literary milieu, while carefully analyzing the profound differences separating it from its milieu as well.”

2. (specifically)A social environment or setting.

   “The distinction between the constituents in, and the conditions of, the integral life-career of person is well brought out in contrasting the attitudes of attention which persons normally develop with the milieux or social media which serve as the theater for their exercise. […] The assertive attitude of challenge finds its milieux in the domains of sport, art, exercise, industry, etc., to which the conception of gestalt may well be extended.”

   “Confronted by the multiplicity of the milieus that could influence curriculum activity, we need some way of deciding not only what kinds of milieus should claim our attention, but also what kinds of knowledge about them we should attend to.”

   “The unmistakable directness and violence of Jesus' action shows it to have been undertaken and executed precisely as if the milieu were indeed not there to be counted. Here again is the character of action taken in the very face of the milieu without taking any notice of it. In any event, the one certainty is that the Roman milieu, so entirely ignored by his teaching, here came conclusively to touch upon it, putting Jesus to an end.”

   “Certain milieus are described as cosmopolitan. Typically these are artistic, intellectual and bohemian milieus, but also the world of international business and high finance, and some mafias and underworlds.”

   “The vast majority of our intensive child and adolescent treatment milieus operate within an adult-centric model, wherein staff play the central role in developing, instilling and enforcing the culture; a model that places virtually all power and authority in the hands of the supervising adults.”

3. A group of people with a common point of view; a social class or group.

   “It's not easy to find someone whom one has mislaid for years in London, particularly if she belongs to the sort of milieu that Anna belonged to, but clearly the first thing to do is look in the telephone book.”