fin de siecle
fin de siecle is the alternative spelling of fin de siècle.
Meaning of fin de siècle
Adjective
fin de siècle (not comparable)
- Pertaining to the close of the 19th century, usually suggesting a literary and artistic climate of modernism, world-weariness, and self-indulgence.
- The fin-de-siècle phenomenon has, of course, received considerable attention from historians in the recent past—a testament to its appeal. […] They also tend to concentrate on individual as well as social alienation as particularly characteristic of the fin-de-siècle feeling.1990, Mikulas Teich, Roy Porter, Fin de Siècle and Its Legacy, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 3
- Pertaining to the close of the 20th (or any other) century.
- And, Dag, have you ever noticed that your bungalow looks more like it belongs to a pair of Eisenhower era Allentown, Pennsylvania newlyweds than it does to a fin de siècle existentialist poseur?1991, Douglas Coupland, “Eat Your Parents”, in Generation X, New York: St. Martin's Press, →OCLC, page 85
Origin of fin de siecle
One of many instances of the tendency in English not to bother using the original diacritics on loanwords; other examples include cafe, naivete, resume, and deja vu. Further encouraged by the fact that keyboard layouts used by English speakers require extra keystrokes to produce diacritics.
Questions about fin de siecle
- What is fin de siecle the alternative spelling of?
- Fin de siecle is the alternative spelling of fin de siècle.
Words near fin de siecle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fin de siecle (page history and authors); fin de siècle (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: “fin de siecle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fin_de_siecle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.