faute de mieux

comparative more faute de mieux · superlative most faute de mieux

1. For want of something better; for lack of an alternative; as a makeshift.

   I just married her faute de mieux.

   2 more examples

   Then, Alas! any body was company for every body and the first lord of the land did not think it shame, faute de mieux, to take up with the conversation of his butler, or his game-keeper, over a tankard; while the young ladies, faute de tout, danced "Bobbing Joan," with the rest of the domestics in the servants' hall.

   1823, "Select Society, With Observations on the Modern Art of Matchmaking", in The New Monthly Magazine,by C. M., pub. E. W. Allen,, volume 8 pages 91-92

   Among the explanations commonly advanced are: (1) Greek males were driven to seek romance and sexual gratification with other males, faute de mieux, by the seclusion and enforced intellectual impoverishment of *women; (2) […]

   1998, “homosexuality”, in Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, editors, The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisation, Oxford, published 2004, →ISBN, page 353