Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An upholstered armchair usually having sides that are open.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An arm-chair; particularly, in French usage, the seat of a presiding officer; the chair; hence, the dignity of presidency; specifically, the seat of a member of the French Academy (in reference to the forty seats provided for it by Louis XIV.); hence, membership in the Academy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An armchair; hence (because the members sit in fauteuils or armchairs), membership in the French Academy.
  • noun Chair of a presiding officer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An armchair.
  • noun The chair of a presiding officer.
  • noun by extension Membership in the Académie française.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an upholstered armchair

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French faldestoel, of Germanic origin; see pel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French. See faldistory.

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Examples

  • Awkward, ill-bred people, being ashamed, commonly sit bolt upright and stiff; others, too negligent and easy, se vautrent dans leur fauteuil, which is ungraceful and ill-bred, unless where the familiarity is extreme; but a man of fashion makes himself easy, and appears so by leaning gracefully instead of lolling supinely; and by varying those easy attitudes instead of that stiff immobility of a bashful booby.

    Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 2005

  • My fauteuil was a plank, and the orchestra surpassed the worst tortures of the Inquisition.

    A Chair on the Boulevard Leonard Merrick 1901

  • Mr. Baldwin loved to put a single leather fauteuil in otherwise contemporary rooms, nowhere more effectively than his own studio apartment.

    A Real American Hero David Netto 2010

  • The contrast between his filigree, expressive wood base and the voluminous appearance of the seat upholstery gives the fauteuil his strong expressive character.

    The Wogg 47 Armchair by Frédéric Dedelley 2008

  • The concept was to create a fauteuil which surprises with lightness and convince with comfort.

    The Wogg 47 Armchair by Frédéric Dedelley 2008

  • There are a few of these words (PL: plaze, FR: plage; PL: meble FR: meubl; PL: fotel FR: fauteuil ... among others.)

    abat-jour - French Word-A-Day 2008

  • He pointed indicating a pale fauteuil with wooden arms carved like tree limbs.

    where to land, where to land 2010

  • *The king and queen always had a fauteuil armchair to sit on.

    Archive 2009-01-01 elena maria vidal 2009

  • *The king and queen always had a fauteuil armchair to sit on.

    Etiquette in the 18th century de Brantigny........................ 2009

  • In paintings like "Site domestique (au fusil espadon) avec tête d'inca et petit fauteuil à droite" (1966) or sculptures like "La jubilant" (1967), Dubuffet enters an architectural dimension.

    James Turrell's Skyspace Offers a Meditation on Light and Time 2009

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  • The first person whom she introduced him to, at that island of fauteuils and androids, now getting up from around a low table with a copper ashbowl for hub...

    - Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor

    June 5, 2008