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adieu

noun

Simple meaning

A word spoken when leaving someone.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhdyoo

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ədˈjʊ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A farewell, a goodbye; especially a fond farewell, or a lasting or permanent farewell.

  2. A farewell remark

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient
Frequency
Rare
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: A farewell, a goodbye; especially a fond farewell, or a lasting or permanent farewell.

Used this way, adieu is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • goodby , rarer, so it draws attention
  • auf wiedersehen , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

bid adieubade adieubidding adieulast adieufinal adieusay adieulong adieuadieu dear

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: farewell or a goodbye

so long

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.