page_title: Glossary of French expressions in English
section_title: F
hierarchical_section_title: Glossary of French expressions in English / Used in English and French / F
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Fleur de Sel, Ile de Re, 2005 English: sea salt Deutsch: Meersalzblumen in einer Saline auf der Ile de Re
context_page_description: Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. Thoroughly English words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, machine, money, police, publicity, role, routine and table, are pronounced according to English rules of phonology, rather than French, and are commonly used by English speakers without any consciousness of their French origin.
  This article, on the other hand, covers French words and phrases that have entered the English lexicon without ever losing their character as Gallicisms: they remain unmistakably "French" to an English speaker. They are most common in written English, where they retain French diacritics and are usually printed in italics. In spoken English, at least some attempt is generally made to pronounce them as they would sound in French; an entirely English pronunciation is regarded as a solecism.
  Some of them were never "good French", in the sense of being grammatical, idiomatic French usage.
context_section_description: façade
  the front view of an edifice (from the Italian facciata, or face); a fake persona, as in "putting on a façade" (the ç is pronounced like an s)
  fait accompli
   lit. "accomplished fact"; something that has already happened and is thus unlikely to be reversed; a done deal. In French used only in the expression placer/mettre quelqu'un devant le fait accompli meaning to present somebody with a fait accompli. Also see point of no return.
  faute de mieux
  for want of better.
  faites comme chez vous
  Make yourself at home.
  faux
  false, ersatz, fake.
  faux pas
  lit. "false step": violation of accepted, although unwritten, social rules.
  femme fatale
  lit. "deadly woman": an attractive woman who seduces and takes advantage of men for her personal goals, after which she discards or abandons them. It extends to describe an attractive woman with whom a relationship is likely to result, or has already resulted, in pain and sorrow.
  feuilleton
  lit. "little leaf of paper": a periodical, or part of a periodical, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles.
  fiancé(e)
  betrothed; lit. a man/woman engaged to be married.
  film noir
  Lit. "black film": a genre of dark-themed movies from the 1940s and 1950s that focus on stories of crime and immorality.
  fils
  lit. "son": used after a man's surname to distinguish a son from a father, as Alexandre Dumas, fils.
  fin de siècle
  The end of the century, a term which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom turn of the century and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another.
  flambé
  a cooking procedure in which alcohol (ethanol) is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames, meaning "flamed" in French. Also used colloquially in reference to something on fire or burned.
  flambeau
  a lit torch.
  flâneur
  a gentleman stroller of city streets; an aimless idler.
  fleur-de-lis
  a stylized-flower heraldic device; the golden fleur-de-lis on an azure background were the arms of the French Kingdom (often spelled with the old French style as "fleur-de-lys").
  fleur de sel
  lit. "flower of salt", hand-harvested sea salt collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans. Is one of the more expensive salts; traditional French fleur de sel is collected off the coast of Brittany most notably in the town of Guérande (Fleur de Sel de Guérande being the most revered), but also in Noirmoutier, Île de Ré and Camargue.
  foie gras
  fatty liver; usually the liver of overfed goose, hence: pâté de foie gras, pâté made from goose liver.
  folie à deux
  a simultaneous occurrence of delusions in two closely related people, often said of an unsuitable romance. In clinical psychology, the term is used to describe people who share schizophrenic delusions. The derived forms folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie en famille or even folie à plusieurs do not exist in French where "collective hysterics" is used.
  force majeure
  an overpowering and unforeseeable event, especially when talking about weather (often appears in insurance contracts).
  forte
  Lit. "strong point" (of a sword). Strength, expertise, one's strong point.
  froideur
  coldness (for behavior and manners only).
caption: Fleur de sel
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