ex-fiancé

ex-fiancé — noun

1. a man that someone had formally agreed to marry but then separated from before t

1.nounB1
Definition

a man that someone had formally agreed to marry but then separated from before the wedding ceremony took place

Example

Diego still keeps a photo of his ex-fiancé on the living room shelf.

Ananya ran into her ex-fiancé at a coffee shop near the station.

run into + ex-fiancé — chance-encounter collocation

Common collocations
  • still in love with one's ex-fiancé
  • run into one's ex-fiancé
  • hear from one's ex-fiancé
  • ex-fiancé's wedding
Synonyms
  • former fiancé

    full-length form, identical meaning but slightly more formal

  • ex

    informal and less specific — may refer to any former romantic partner

Antonyms
  • fiancé

    the man someone is currently engaged to marry

Grammar Patterns

ex-fiancé + possessive determiner

Usage Note

The feminine form, ex-fiancée, refers to a woman who was formerly engaged. Learners should note the spelling difference — ex-fiancé (masculine, one 'e') versus ex-fiancée (feminine, two 'e's).

Common Mistakes

She introduced her ex-fiancé from college, but they had never been engaged.
She introduced her ex-boyfriend from college, but they had never been engaged.
'ex-fiancé' implies a formal engagement existed; 'ex-boyfriend' is correct when no engagement took place.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Ex-fiancé refers specifically to a man to whom one was formally engaged — meaning a marriage proposal was accepted — but whom one never married. Ex-boyfriend is the broadest term, covering any former male romantic partner regardless of commitment level; calling someone an ex-fiancé implies a deeper, legally significant commitment that was called off close to marriage. Ex-partner is even more neutral and broad, used for both romantic and domestic partnerships of any gender. Former fiancé is identical in meaning to ex-fiancé but feels slightly more formal and may be preferred when the breakup is recent or the speaker wants a more serious tone. For example: 'My ex-boyfriend and I dated for two months' suggests a casual relationship, whereas 'My ex-fiancé called off the wedding three weeks before the date' signals a rupture at an advanced stage of commitment.

ex-boyfriend ↗ex-partnerformer fiancéex-fiancé ↗

Common collocations

Phrases

  • broken engagement
  • call off the wedding
  • former fiancé

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Ex-fiancé combines the prefix ex- (meaning 'former', from Latin ē/ex 'out of') with fiancé, taken directly from modern French. The French word fiancé is the past participle of fiancer, meaning 'to betroth', which traces back through Old French fiancier (to promise, pledge) to Latin fidere, meaning 'to trust'. English adopted fiancé and fiancée in the mid-19th century to distinguish the engaged person by gender, and the prefixed forms ex-fiancé / ex-fiancée followed soon after to describe a broken engagement.