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, more often, "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".
- Entrée in French on a restaurant menu does not have the meaning of "main course" that it does in American English (in French that is "plat"), but instead refers to the course preceding the main course, namely the first course in a three-course meal, or what in British English is also called a "starter" and in American English an "appetizer" (Australasian English however uses 'Entree' in the same sense as French). Thus a three-course meal in French consists of an "entrée" (first course), a "plat" (the main course) and "dessert". [Source: universal French menu usage and Larousse "Grand Dictionnaire Français/Anglais - Anglais-Français": s.v. entrée (7): First course, starter: "je prendrai une salade en entrée — I'll have a salade to start with."]
- Law French - Many words used in modern law are derived from now-archaic French words that have lost their meaning for native French speakers.
- 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.
- Portmanteau words are called mot-valises in French. The word portemanteau (or porte-manteau) generally refers to a coat hanger nowadays. However, it used to also refer to a form of suitcase containing two separated hinged compartments, which metaphorically became a word containing two distinct words. Interestingly, the French word mot-valise literally means "suitcase-word".