Etymology

déjà vu

Today it means: The subjective, unexpected feeling of having experienced something before, especially when that is not the case. Full definition →

French déjà vu
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromdéjà vu
  2. English todaydéjà vu

Unadapted borrowing from French déjà vu (literally “already seen”), coined by Émile Boirac in Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger, 1876.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.