divorcé/divorcée

divorced person, divorcé. Or, nothing at all (a person's marital status is seldom relevant, and descriptors like "unmarried," "unwed," and "formerly married" point to a faulty marriage-as-norm standard). It has usually been the woman who is called a divorcée (often with pejorative overtones), while a man is referred to as unmarried, a bachelor, or as someone who is divorced. Use parallel terms for both sexes. Casey Miller and Kate Swift (The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing) persuasively recommend the standard form of French words, that is, "divorcé" for both sexes. Note that "émigré" is used that way in English. This guideline can also be applied to such words as blond, brunet, chaperon, confidant, clairvoyant, debutant, fiancé, habitué, and protege.