Word.ws English Dictionary

arrières-pensées

arrières-pensées is the plural of arrière-pensée.

Meaning of arrière-pensée

Noun

arrière-pensée (plural arrière-pensées or (proscribed) arrières-pensées)

  1. A mental reservation or ulterior motive.
    • He knew that I had guessed his arrière-pensée, but he let me off for the moment, for which I was thankful; either because he was still ashamed of it, or because he supposed I was reserving myself for the catastrophe,—should it occur.1884, Henry James, “The Path of Duty”, in The English Illustrated Magazine, 2(15): 240-256

Questions about arrières-pensées

What is arrières-pensées the plural of?
Arrières-pensées is the plural of arrière-pensée.

Words near arrières-pensées in the dictionary

  1. arrière-pensée
  2. arrière-pensées
  3. arrière-voussure
  4. arrière-voussures
  5. arrièrepensée
  6. arrières-pensées
  7. arroba
  8. arrobas
  9. arroces
  10. Arrochar
  11. arroded

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arrières-pensées (page history and authors); arrière-pensée (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “arrières-pensées.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arri%C3%A8res-pens%C3%A9es. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.