fiance
See also: fiancé and fiancée
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /fiˈɑnseɪ/
Noun
fiance (plural fiances)
- Alternative spelling of fiancé
Etymology 2
From French fiancer.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈfaɪ.əns/
Verb
fiance (third-person singular simple present fiances, present participle fiancing, simple past and past participle fianced)
- (obsolete) To betroth; to affiance.
- 1569, Thomas Stocker, A righte noble and pleasant history of the successors of Alexander surnamed the Great:
- he […] therfore fianced he his daughter
- 1993 Cindy Holbrook, A Daring Deception, page 91
- he should become so lusty over a lady of such questionable motives? He was fianced, after all. Perhaps that was it. Since his engagement, he had abstained from any liaisons, feeling it was only proper in a man soon to be married
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Anagrams
- fancie
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /fjɑ̃s/
- Rhymes: -ɑ̃s
Etymology 1
From Middle French fiance, from Old French fiance, from fier + -ance.
Noun
fiance f (plural fiances)
- (obsolete) faith; confidence
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Verb
fiance
- inflection of fiancer:
- first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- second-person singular imperative
Further reading
- “fiance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Middle French
Etymology
From Old French < fier + -ance or Latin fidentia.
Noun
fiance f (plural fiances)
- faith; confidence
Synonyms
- foy
Old French
Alternative forms
- fïance (occasional scholarly form)
Etymology
From the verb fier + -ance or from Latin fidentia.
Noun
fiance f (oblique plural fiances, nominative singular fiance, nominative plural fiances)
- faith; confidence
- circa 1150, Turoldus, La Chanson de Roland:
- En tels vassals deit hom aveir fiance !
- In such knights a man must have confidence!
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Synonyms
- foi