soi-disant
English
Etymology
From French soi-disant.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˌswɑːdiːˈzɒ̃/, /swa diˈzɑn/
Adjective
soi-disant (not comparable)
- Self-styled; self-proclaimed.
- 1860, John Ruskin, Unto This Last, Cornhill Magazine
- Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious -- certainly the least creditable -- is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, based on the idea that an advantageous code of social action may be determined irrespectively of the influence of social affection.
- 2007 March 12, Zoe Williams, “The weekend's TV”, in The Guardian:
- "Fuck You, Buddy" is the first part in a series (The Trap - What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom, Sunday, BBC2) about civil liberties: the keen-eared wireless listener will have been alerted to its soi-disant intellectual credentials by the fact that they are trailing it on Radio 4.
- 1860, John Ruskin, Unto This Last, Cornhill Magazine
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /swa.di.zɑ̃/
Audio (file)
Adjective
- self-proclaimed
- Synonym: autoproclamé
- so-called, supposed (so named)
Usage notes
- The use of soi-disant in the sense présumé (“so-called, presumed by others”) is sometimes regarded as incorrect.
- soit-disant is a misspelling.
Further reading
- “soi-disant” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
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