fiancé

or fi·an·ce

[ fee-ahn-sey, fee-ahn-sey ]

noun

1. a man engaged to be married.

fiancé

/ fɪˈɒnseɪ /

noun

1. a man who is engaged to be married

Gender Note

See fiancée.

Word History and Origins

Origin of fiancé¹

First recorded in 1850–55; from French: “betrothed,” past participle of fiancer, Old French fiancier, verbal derivative of fiance “a promise,” equivalent to fi(er) “to trust” (from unattested Vulgar Latin fīdāre, Latin fīdere ) + -ance noun suffix; -ance, -ee

Word History and Origins

Origin of fiancé¹

C19: from French, from Old French fiancier to promise, betroth, from fiance a vow, from fier to trust, from Latin fīdere

Example Sentences

My fiancé has a ten-year-old daughter who’s becoming interested in sports, and I encouraged her to add this to her reading list.

From Outside Online

My fiancé said that his commitment to me is also a lifetime commitment to her.

From Essence.com

I have gotten many friends registered to vote, the hardest one being my fiancé, who has never taken an interest in politics prior to this year.

From Ozy

She and her fiancé have been very cautious throughout the pandemic, ordering in groceries and even skipping out on festivities for their child’s first birthday.

From Vox

So, although it’s odd to say your ex-fiancé, my ex fiancé is one of those people for me.

From Ozy

And this is all on top of a 2005 incident, where a former fiance sought a restraining order against him.

From The Daily Beast

Dear Blogger: My fiance and I are roughly-30-year-old software developers.

From The Daily Beast

I used to be into you and your fiance Blake Shelton's tweets, but neither of you have really been tweeting anymore.

From The Daily Beast

Katie Finneran's emotional acceptance speech dedicated to her fiance.

From The Daily Beast

He employed Corentin to clear up the dark side of the life of Clotilde's fiance.

From Project Gutenberg

But certainly I had not expected to see sitting on the page written in my fiance's hand, the face of another woman.

From Project Gutenberg

The father agrees with her; and he and her fiance, this gentleman here, have run away with her, to prevent her being locked up.

From Project Gutenberg

And then suppose after you came home you took your wife, or your mother, or your fiance, to see this play.

From Project Gutenberg

He merely returned home to bid his last farewell to his dying mother, and to intrust her to the care of his fiance.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• affianced
• affianced person
• betrothed
• engaged person
• future mate
• groom-to-be
• husband-to-be
• intended
• prospective spouse

Fiancé Vs. Fiancée

What’s the difference between fiancé and fiancée?

The word fiancé is traditionally used to refer to the man that a person is engaged to be married to (the groom-to-be). Fiancée is traditionally used to refer to the woman that a person is engaged to be married to (the bride-to-be).

However, the spelling fiancé—with just one e—is sometimes used without reference to gender.

The two words are pronounced exactly the same. Their different endings are due to the fact that they derive from French, which has grammatical gender, meaning that some words end differently depending on whether they are applied to men or women (with e being the feminine ending). This happens in a few other pairs of words in English, like blond and blonde, though in many cases the term without the e has become largely gender-neutral. This is the case with both blond and fiancé.

Similar to some other words derived from French (like résumé), they are sometimes written without accents, as fiance and fiancee.

Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between fiancé and fiancée.

Quiz yourself on fiancée vs. fiancé!

True or False? 

The spelling fiancé can be used for any gender.