ménage à trois
Americannoun
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a domestic arrangement in which three people, usually a heterosexual couple and one other person, are engaged in a sexual or romantic relationship and occupy the same household.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ménage à trois
First recorded in 1860–65; from French: “household of three”
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.
Take Kafka: in his novels and short stories he reveals himself to be obsessed with what, by now, we should see as a three-way stand-off, or ménage à trois, between man, technology and writing.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 23, 2010
Anne d'Autriche, too, left Compiègne practically a prisoner; another ménage à trois had been broken up.
From Royal Palaces and Parks of France by McManus, Blanche
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.
