je ne sais quoi

by bigmouth_strikes (3.2 d)

Fri Jul 06 2001 at 14:06:53

je ne sais quoi

French expression literally meaning "I know not what"; je I , ne...pas not , sais know , quoi what . In Oxford English Dictonary since 1656. It is a way to express a quality that is hard to describe; a certain something.

Example: "dem bones is really stylish, he has a certain je ne sais quoi."

This is an entry in the mini series about French idioms in the English language.

(I like it!)

2 C!s

printable version

chaos

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The lost scene from Austin Powers 2	The unique smell of American paper money	The Je Ne Scai Quoi	I secretly admire Cruella De Vil. PETA will be kicking down my door any second.
Linux is a toy UNIX	je t'aime	Why women dye their hair blonde	hardening your vehicle
French used in the English vocabulary	Words that are supposedly untranslatable	bon mot	suivez moi jeune homme
Being solicited for sex by people who don't even know your gender	touché	ji ga yomeru kedo kakenai	creme de la creme
Dem Bones	Noir Désir	The lonely ones will find each other by the heat of their bodies	Why was my writeup nuked?
People need difficult languages	The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy	ineffable	culture shock

Everything2

je ne sais quoi

This is an entry in the mini series about French idioms in the English language.

Epicenter

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