Le Mot Juste

What is Le Mot Juste?


1.

a French (read: pretentious) expression meaning "the right wording/phrasing"

often used by snotty intellectuals like Frasier Crane from the TV show Frasier

"Oh anyway, as I was saying, it was horr--well, actually, "horrible" isn't quite le mot juste--more like calamitous! Disastrous! Deplorable! EXECRABLE!"

"Oh brother."

2.

"the right word" in French. Coined by 19th-century novelist Gustave Flaubert, who often spent weeks looking for the right word to use.

Flaubert spent his life agonizing over "le mot juste." Now Madame Bovary is available in 20 different crappy english translations, so now it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference.

See french, gustave, madame, bovary


34

Random Words:

1. Preppy girl who acts like a gangster. "Yo Jamal, look at those unarls smokin'." Said LaDarius in Harlem...
1. the use of god-like force in a way that cleaves,crushes or shatters said object or person. im going to smite you, i'll smite you i..
1. Kinda hard to explain, actually, I think it means coolest person in the world, ya no? Yo, Katterpillasizzle, wassup my Nizzle?..