fainéante
French, noun
fainéante is spelled F-A-I-N-É-A-N-T-E (9 letters) and appears about once in every 5 million words in written French, the 77,345th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Fainéante is a French feminine noun meaning “female equivalent of fainéant” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With an accent, fainéanté is a different word: “past participle of fainéanter”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Celle qui ne veut rien faire”.
What does fainéante mean in English?
noun
- 1
femininefemale equivalent of fainéant
adjective
- 1
femininefeminine singular of fainéant
verb
- 1
past participle of fainéanter
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Celle qui ne veut rien faire.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of fainéante
- fainéantes plural
- fainéantée feminine
- fainéantés masculine plural
- fainéantées feminine plural
- fainéant masculine
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to fainéante
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is fainéante in French?
fainéante appears about once in every 5 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).