ennuyé

ennuyé

See also: ennuye

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French ennuyé.

Adjective

ennuyé (comparative more ennuyé, superlative most ennuyé)

1. Affected with ennui; bored.
   • 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’:

     Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the world.

   • 1856, Richard F. Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa, Könemann 2000, p. 49:

     You must open your doors to your friend at all hours; if when inside it suit him to sing, sing he will; and until you learn solitude in a crowd, or the art of concentration, you are apt to become ennuyé and irritable.

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.nɥi.je/

Participle

ennuyé (feminine ennuyée, masculine plural ennuyés, feminine plural ennuyées)

1. past participle of ennuyer

Adjective

ennuyé (feminine ennuyée, masculine plural ennuyés, feminine plural ennuyées)

1. annoyed, upset, sorry, angry, disappointed, embarrassed, concerned
2. (to look) worried, bothered, annoyed (avoir l'air ennuyé)
3. (rarely) bored, ennuyé

Usage notes

The expression je suis ennuyé is a common incorrect way that English speakers try to say I'm bored ("je m'ennuie"). It in fact means "I'm upset" or several other similar or quite different things depending on the context. The same holds true for je suis embêté (instead of "je m'embête").

Further reading

• “ennuyé”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.