Meaning
A resigned acknowledgment that a disappointment or setback is simply how life goes - roughly 'that's life' or 'oh well'. It is an informal, lightly ironic spoken tag, usually shrugging off minor rather than serious misfortune, and English speakers often deploy it with a self-aware, slightly performative French flourish. Informal and conversational; the French adds a wry, worldly tone and can sound affected in solemn contexts. Regional use: General English (borrowed from French).
Origin
Straight from French c'est la vie, literally 'that is the life'. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates its appearance in English to 1922 and memorably calls it 'a verbal shrug', noting that native English parallels are older: 'such is life' from 1778 and 'that's life' from 1884. Dictionary.com's earliest illustrative example comes from Evelyn Baring's Political and Literary Essays, 1908-1913, so the phrase was reaching English prose in the Edwardian era; the exact first English attestation is not settled in these sources. It has since become one of the most familiar French tags in everyday English.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- ce la vie
- say la vee
Usage Examples
- The train left without us, so we found a cafe and waited for the next one - c'est la vie.
- You lose some deals and you win others; c'est la vie, as she likes to say.
- When the picnic was rained out for the third year running, he shrugged and muttered c'est la vie.