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In French, it means "beginning." The English meaning of the word exists only when in the plural form: [faire] ses débuts [sur scène] (to make one's débuts on the stage). The English meaning and usage also extends to sports to denote a player who is making their first appearance for a team or at an event. décolletage a low-cut neckline ...
Generally, words coming from French often retain a higher register than words of Old English origin, and they are considered by some to be more posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious. However, there are exceptions: weep , groom and stone (from Old English) occupy a slightly higher register than cry , brush and rock (from French).
Furthermore, the list excludes compound words in which only one of the elements is from French, e.g. ice cream, sunray, jellyfish, killjoy, lifeguard, and passageway, and English-made combinations of words of French origin, e.g. grapefruit (grape + fruit), layperson (lay + person), magpie, marketplace, petticoat, and straitjacket.
This is a list of French words, terms and phrases of English language origin, some of a specialist nature, in common usage in the French language or at least within their specialist area. Modern English is rarely considered a source language as it is itself a mixture of other languages.
These are French words, but they are also English words and are properly listed in List of English words of French origin#N rather than in this article. They are commonly understood words that are relatively standard English usage. See Webster, for example, pr Encarta or even Urban.
The first continued in its adopted language in its original obsolete form centuries after it had changed its form in national French: bon viveur – the second word is not used in French as such, [1] while in English it often takes the place of a fashionable man, a sophisticate, a man used to elegant ways, a man-about-town, in fact a bon vivant ...
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Influence of French on English; French phrases used by English speakers; Law French; Glossary of fencing, (predominantly from French). Glossary of ballet (predominantly from French) Lists of English loanwords by country or language of origin; List of English words of Gaulish origin; List of English words of Latin origin