fiancée
Americannoun
noun
Gender
When French words describe or name people, they are inflected to match the gender of the person. To mark a noun or adjective as feminine, French adds an unaccented letter e at the end of a word. If the person engaged to be married is a man, he’s a fiancé . The bride-to-be is a fiancée . This distinction is usually preserved in English language use of these words: fiancé for a man, fiancée for a woman. However, it is also common for borrowed words to lose some foreign characteristics. This is why, for example, words like cliché , fiancée , or résumé may be written in English without accent marks. Such an omission in French would be an error, resulting in the wrong pronunciation of these words, but in English, it is acceptable to lose this foreign feature. Similarly, some English speakers will completely drop the gender agreement in the fiancé — fiancée distinction, using fiancé for both men and women. The prescriptive rules of English grammar do not encourage the reduction to a single form, though it is a natural phenomenon for words borrowed into English to neutralize gender markings. The adjective née presents a slightly different case. The feminine inflection of this French word is the commonly borrowed form, since women are usually the ones to distinguish their maiden names from their married ones. However, the masculine form né would be the appropriate one for a man in reference to his original last name, in the increasingly common event of the groom’s name changing with his marriage. The spelling with the extra e is the marked feminine form and should be used to name or describe a woman: née , divorcée , fiancée . If you choose to spell these French words with their accents, be sure to place them correctly. For words ending in ée, the accented é is the first of the two.
Etymology
Origin of fiancée
First recorded in 1850–55; from French; feminine of fiancé
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the new series of Drive to Survive, there are frequent shots of drivers' partners, such as Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc's fiancée Alexandra Saint Mleux, or Williams driver Carlos Sainz's model girlfriend Rebecca Donaldson in high fashion outfits.
From BBC
An, who plays the billionaire's fiancée, is concerned about AI replacing her, but says micro-dramas are also "an opportunity for new actors like us".
From BBC
The Kane family had not recognized the beautiful, famous Maggie Fox as Elisha’s fiancée.
From Literature
Tennis star Tommy Paul and his fiancee, Paige Lorenze, have shown off the stunning overhaul of their “dream home”—just one month after they listed their respective homes.
From MarketWatch
“I’ve been to Guadalajara many times, but now I have a fiancée and a son. I’m responsible for them. I have to think about it.”
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
