raté

plural ratés

1. an unsuccessful person; a failure

   We seem to assist at the terrible soirées where the ratés exhibit their talents (M. Moronval is of course a raté) [...]

   1970 [1888], Henry James, chapter VII, in Partial Portraits, University of Michigan Press, page 230

   1 more example

   Certainly he was a raté, as I’ve heard many declare since his death, but he was a lucid and conscious raté, one who had deliberately chosen this condition.

   1968, John Raymond, chapter 7, in Simenon in court, Hamish Hammond, page 152

1. not comparablepostpositional(of a person or thing) failed; disappointing

   This was nostalgia on the part of an artist raté; in fact, Die Weltbühne was as full of politics and economics in 1926 as it was six years later.

   1968, István Deák, chapter II, in Weimar Germany's left-wing intellectuals: A political history of the Weltbühne and its circle, University of California Press, page 60

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   We were already notorious — the British honeymoon couple whose marriage was raté before it had begun, the husband who went raving on the beach at night to expiate some terrible shame.

   1993 [1992], Julian More, chapter 3, in More about France: A sentimental journey, Pan Books Limited, page 40