# faux pas

Pronunciation: US say "foh-PAH" /ˌfoʊ ˈpɑ/; UK say "foh PAH" /fəʊ pɑː/

## Noun

1. A blunder that causes embarrassment or shows a lack of tact.
   - Simple: An embarrassing mistake, such as saying or doing something rude by accident.
   - _The senator's faux pas, a joke about the flood victims, dominated the evening news._
   - _Newcomers to the office make all sorts of faux pas, like hitting reply-all on a message to the entire staff._

## Origin

An unadapted borrowing from French faux pas (“blunder; misstep, false step”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/faux-pas (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).