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Glite Dictionary
mot juste

mot juste

9.9
The exact word or phrase that fits a situation
  • noun
  • /moʊ ʒuːst/
  • Literature
translation icon : mot juste
  • Anyhow, it struck Cosmo as being the MOT juste at the time and he came out with it.

Anyhow, it struck Cosmo as being the MOT juste at the time and he came out with it.

Examples

  • The mot juste.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Precisely the mot juste for what Powell was trying to convey:

    Academic text (2001)

  • The transference of this mot juste to Brinck needed little elaboration.

    Academic text (1998)

  • The author struggled to find the mot juste that perfectly captured the emotion of the scene.

  • During the debate, she used a mot juste that made her point clear and compelling.

  • He always believed that the right mot juste could make any argument more persuasive.

How Exact

mot juste
  • Literature
9.9
term
∞ 4.1
misnomer
19 7.7

Surface Forms

mot juste singular
mots justes plural

Morphology

mot + juste

This is a French loanphrase whose meaning is directly compositional: French mot = 'word' and juste = 'right/exact', so together they yield 'the right/exact word'. Although the second element may be unfamiliar in English dictionaries, if a learner knows the constituent meanings the overall sense is immediately derivable, making the expression transparent.

Etymology

Mot juste comes from French: mot means 'word' and juste means 'right' or 'exact'. Writers used the phrase to point to the one perfect word that fits an idea exactly, so today mot juste means 'the exactly right word'.