List of pseudo-French words adapted to English
- List of pseudo-French words adapted to English
This is a list of pseudo-French words adopted from French and adapted in such a way into English that their original meanings are no longer readily recognised by indigenous French speakers due to the new circumstances in which they were being used in English:
Several such French expressions have found a home in English. The first continued in its adopted language in its original obsolete form centuries after it had changed its morpheme in national French:
*double entendre — still used in English long after it had changed to "double entente" or "double sens" in France, and ironically has itself two meanings, one of which is of a sexually dubious nature. This might be classed a kind of "pseudo-Gallicism".
*"bon viveur" — the second word is not used in French as such, while in English it often takes the place of a fashionable man, a sophisticate, a man used to elegant ways, a man-about-town, in fact a "bon vivant". In French a "viveur" is a rake or debauchee; "bon" does not come into it.
The French "bon vivant" is the usage for an epicure, a person who enjoys good food. "Bonne vivante" is not used.
*"Rendez-vous" — merely means "meeting" or "appointment" in French, but in English has taken on other overtones. Connotations such as secretiveness have crept into the English version, which is sometimes used as a verb. It has also come to mean a particular place where people of a certain type, such as tourists or people who originate from a certain locality, may meet. In recent years, both the verb and the noun have taken on the additional meaning of a location where two spacecraft are brought together for a limited period, usually for docking or retrieval. Fact|date=February 2007
*"Portmanteau" words are called "mot-valises" in French.
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