Word.ws English Dictionary

savoir-vivre

savoir-vivre noun: familiarity with the customs of polite society.

Noun

savoir-vivre (uncountable)

  1. Familiarity with the customs of polite society.
    • Like it or not, we are more invested in France, which has come to epitomise culture, good taste, style and savoir-vivre – even though that reverence is the product of ignorance as much as familiarity.2018 June 28, Phil Daoust, “Never mind the Brexiteurs: why it’s time to learn French”, in The Guardian

Origin of savoir-vivre

Borrowed from French savoir-vivre, a nominalization of the verb phrase savoir vivre "to know how to live."

Questions about savoir-vivre

What does savoir-vivre mean?
Savoir-vivre means familiarity with the customs of polite society.
What part of speech is savoir-vivre?
Savoir-vivre is a noun.

Words near savoir-vivre in the dictionary

  1. savoiardis
  2. savoiardo
  3. Savoias
  4. Savoie
  5. savoir-faire
  6. savoir-vivre
  7. savolitinib
  8. savoloy
  9. savoloys
  10. savon d'Alep
  11. Savona

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: savoir-vivre (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: “savoir-vivre.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/savoir-vivre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.