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• savoir-faire
  savoir-faire

  noun

  knowledge of just what to do in any situation; tact.
• savoir faire
  savoir faire

  Ease and dexterity in social and practical affairs: “Peter is a friendly person, but he lacks the savoir faire required for a successful career in the foreign service.” From French, meaning “to know how to act.”

savoir-faire

American  

[sav-wahr-fair, sa-vwar-fer] / ˈsæv wɑrˈfɛər, sa vwarˈfɛr /

noun

1. knowledge of just what to do in any situation; tact.

   Synonyms:

   ability, skill, discernment, diplomacy, adroitness, adaptability

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savoir-faire British  

/ ˈsævwɑːˈfɛə /

noun

1. the ability to do the right thing in any situation

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savoir faire Cultural  

1. Ease and dexterity in social and practical affairs: “Peter is a friendly person, but he lacks the savoir faire required for a successful career in the foreign service.” From French, meaning “to know how to act.”

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Etymology

Origin of savoir-faire

1805–15; < French: literally, knowing how to do

Explanation

Your savoir-faire is your social smoothness. It will serve you well at parties and on the first day at a new school. As with so many French words that have English cousins, the French version somehow retains an edge of sophistication over its counterpart. The nearest English equivalent of savoir-faire is know-how. But while know-how pertains to nearly all skills, especially practical ones, savoir-faire usually refers specifically to skill in social and diplomatic situations.

Example Sentences

"Our reputation is at stake. That is why we must unite all our knowledge, our efforts, our savoir-faire to achieve this goal."

From BBC • Apr. 14, 2023

An institution near rue Mouffetard, La Tuile à Loup cultivates beauty by preserving the savoir-faire of traditional artisans in the countryside.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 14, 2021

Guided by Zorro’s seamless knitting of savoir-faire and moral uplift, the producers of the Disney TV series made it one of the cleverest and most well-crafted, family-targeted shows of the 1950s.

From Washington Post • Dec. 29, 2020

Nagle shows us the internalized anguish behind Wilde’s deceptive passivity — the thwarted brilliance and loss behind his valiant savoir-faire.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 8, 2019

He was painfully aware that he lacked the ecclesiastical aplomb and savoir-faire that enabled so many of his colleagues in other faiths and sects to get ahead.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller