Word.ws English Dictionary

faute de mieux

UK/fəʊt də ˈmjɜː/US/foʊt də ˈmjə(ɹ)/

faute de mieux adverb: for want of something better; for lack of an alternative; as a makeshift.

Adverb

faute de mieux (comparative more faute de mieux, superlative most faute de mieux)

  1. For want of something better; for lack of an alternative; as a makeshift.
    • I just married her faute de mieux.
    • Then, Alas! any body was company for every body and the first lord of the land did not think it shame, faute de mieux, to take up with the conversation of his butler, or his game-keeper, over a tankard; while the young ladies, faute de tout, danced "Bobbing Joan," with the rest of the domestics in...1823, "Select Society, With Observations on the Modern Art of Matchmaking", in The New Monthly Magazine,by C. M., pub. E. W. Allen,, volume 8 pages 91-92

Forms of faute de mieux

comparativemore faute de mieux
superlativemost faute de mieux

Origin of faute de mieux

Unadapted borrowing from French faute de mieux.

Questions about faute de mieux

What does faute de mieux mean?
Faute de mieux means for want of something better; for lack of an alternative; as a makeshift.
What part of speech is faute de mieux?
Faute de mieux is an adverb.
How do you pronounce faute de mieux?
Faute de mieux is pronounced /fəʊt də ˈmjɜː/ (UK).

Words near faute de mieux in the dictionary

  1. faustovirus
  2. faustoviruses
  3. faustulid
  4. faustulids
  5. fausty
  6. faute de mieux
  7. fauteuil
  8. fauteuils
  9. Fauth
  10. Fauths
  11. fautor

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: faute de mieux (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: “faute de mieux.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/faute_de_mieux. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.