Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

fauteuil

American  
[foh-til, foh-tœ-yuh] / ˈfoʊ tɪl, foʊˈtœ jə /

noun

  • fauteuils
    plural
  1. French Furniture. an upholstered armchair, especially one with open sides.


fauteuil British  
/ ˈfəʊtɜːɪ, fotœj /

noun

  1. an armchair, the sides of which are not upholstered

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of fauteuil

1735–45; < French; Old French faldestoel, faudestueil < Old Low Franconian *faldistôl; see faldstool


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.

See Examples For:

A plush, red velvet fauteuil tucked into the lower right corner of the picture is like an upscale launching pad, which has propelled the man to the balustrade along a tall French window.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2025

“I didn’t know a fauteuil from a bergère,” she says after meeting the Kennedy family.

From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2013

The younger generations neither fancy such seats — you cannot sprawl in a Louis XV fauteuil — nor do they like the interior design into which gilt Rocaille armchairs can fit.

From New York Times ● Jul. 22, 2011

The rust and dust of their long exile in cellars and attics are as carefully preserved as the patina on a Louis XV fauteuil.

From Time Magazine Archive

If your ladyship will kindly occupy my fauteuil till I return, that chair will ever after be sacred to me.

From A Book of Ghosts by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

Originally, according to David Wilmore of Theatresearch, a company that restores historic theaters in Britain, they would have had a few front rows of luxurious armchairs — known as fauteuils — for their wealthiest patrons.

From New York Times ● Oct. 24, 2022

At any rate, M. Clemenceau was so excited that he forgot to give the usual pourboire to the female attendant who conducted him to his front seat in the fauteuils.

From Time Magazine Archive

She liked white-pickled fauteuils and Indian miniatures, 17th century drawings of uncertain authorship, 19th century Chinese blue-and-white pots, theater prints, architectural capriccios, Victorian mahogany and squishy ecru upholstery.

From Time Magazine Archive

In his dingy, one-room flat on the Rue Bonaparte, oil lamps and candles light up the empire fauteuils, the portraits of Napoleon and the etchings of Napoleon's greatest battles.

From Time Magazine Archive

Some of the cafés chantants are patronized by the well-dressed class, and a blousard is no more likely to be seen in their orchestra fauteuils than in the same division of the regular theatres.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875 by Various

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Just like flashcards, but way more fun

Don't take our word for it. Leave the boring studying behind and join VocabTrainer today. You'll learn even faster and never look back.

Take me to Vocabulary.com