A ''manqué'' (feminine ''manquée'', from the French for "missed") is a person who has failed to live up to a specific expectation or ambition. It is usually used in combination with a profession: for example, a career

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leader ...

with political prowess who nonetheless never attained political office might be described as a "politician manqué". It can also be used relative to a specific role model; a second-rate

method actor Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to: *Scien ...

might be referred to as a "

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...

manqué".

Overview

The term derives from the

past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

of the French verb ''manquer'' (to miss, to fail, to lack). In English, it is used postpositively, that is, following the noun it modifies in the manner of most adjectives in French. The British political writer and former

M.P. A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members ofte ...

David Marquand David Ian Marquand (born 20 September 1934) is a British academic and former Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP). Background and political career Marquand was born in Cardiff; his father was Hilary Marquand, also an academic and former La ...

described the mid-20th century Labour politician

Aneurin Bevan Aneurin "Nye" Bevan PC (; 15 November 1897 – 6 July 1960) was a Welsh Labour Party politician, noted for tenure as Minister of Health in Clement Attlee's government in which he spearheaded the creation of the British National Heal ...

as a "statesman manqué", while the magazine ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent critici ...

'' referred to journalist

Janet Street-Porter Janet Vera Street-Porter (''née'' Bull; born 27 December 1946) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and media personality. She began her career as a fashion writer and columnist at the ''Daily Mail'' and was later appointed fashion e ...

as an "architect manquée". The ''Collins Dictionary'' gave the example of a manager as an "actor ''manqué''", while the ''Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases'' cited the ''Times'' magazine in 1996 as describing a " subway genius" as "a writer manqué since many of his chosen citations deal with creating literature". Arising from the inscription on

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

's door in

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

, "let no one devoid of

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

enter here", the 17th-century philosopher

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book '' Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influ ...

has been described as typifying a "mathematician ''manqué''". In

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

's ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Hum ...

'', the narrator, Humbert Humbert, reminisces, "At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many ''manqué'' talents do; but I was even more ''manqué'' than that . . . and I switched to English literature."

As failure

In French ''manqué'' is sometimes applied to someone who has failed to gain professional status - such as ''un médecin manqué'' (a failed doctor) - whereas, in English, it need not have that pejorative implication. In the game of

roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

the set of numbers from 1 to 18 is described as ''manque'' (no accent), meaning that the ball has "failed" to land in one of the higher (19–36) slots.

Manky

The

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

''manky'', meaning "inferior" or "dirty", is thought to be linked in some way to ''manqué'', possibly from the Scots word ''mank'' (maimed or defective) but maybe via

Polari Polari () is a form of slang or cant used in Britain and Ireland by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, sex workers and the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origi ...

. The ancestor of all these words is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

''mancus'' (maimed or crippled; and, by transference, imperfect or incomplete''Cassell's New Latin-English English-Latin Dictionary'' (D. P. Simpson, 3rd ed 1964)).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Manque French words and phrases