fiancée

American  

[fee-ahn-sey, fee-ahn-sey] / ˌfi ɑnˈseɪ, fiˈɑn seɪ /

Or fiancee

noun

1. a woman engaged to be married.

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fiancée British  

/ fɪˈɒnseɪ /

noun

1. a woman who is engaged to be married

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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

In April, pop star Katy Perry, Bezos's fiancée Lauren Sánchez and CBS presenter Gayle King were among six women blasted into space aboard a Blue Origin rocket for a flight that lasted about 11 minutes.

From BBC

He has 28 million followers on Instagram, where he flashes his extravagant life, his collection of cars, and his fiancée, the Dutch Olympic-speedskater-slash-model, Jutta Leerdam.

From The Wall Street Journal

The lawsuit says that Virgil, who was from Riverside, boarded the ship on Dec.13, 2024, with his longtime fiancée, Connie Aguilar, and their 7-year-old son, but they were told to wait in a bar area with live music because their cabin was not ready.

From Los Angeles Times

Now a father of two daughters, Doncic rejoined the team in Philadelphia on Saturday after he and his fiancee welcomed their second child, Olivia.

From Los Angeles Times

Luka Doncic was removed from the team’s status report entering Sunday’s game at Philadelphia after the Lakers superstar and his fiancee announced the birth of their second child Saturday.

From Los Angeles Times