/əˌkɒmˈpliː/
[adjective] Used in the phrase 'fait accompli', meaning something that has already been done or decided and cannot easily be changed. It describes a completed action that others must simply accept.
This word is actually French for 'accomplished' — English borrowed it complete with its partner word, turning a fait accompli into a done deal.
The word 'accompli' comes from French, where it is the past participle of the verb 'accomplir', meaning 'to accomplish' or 'to complete'. In English, it almost never appears alone — it lives inside the borrowed French phrase 'fait accompli', where 'fait' means 'fact' or 'deed'. Together, the phrase means literally 'an accomplished fact' — something already done.
The French verb 'accomplir' traces back to Vulgar Latin, built from the prefix 'ad-' (meaning 'to' or 'towards') combined with 'complere', meaning 'to fill up' or 'to complete'. That Latin root 'complere' is itself made from 'com-' (an intensifying prefix meaning 'completely') and 'plere', meaning 'to fill'. This ancient root connects to a vast family of English words: Latin 'plere' → Old French 'emplir' → English 'fill', and Latin 'complere' → Old French 'complir' → English 'complete' and 'comply'.
The phrase 'fait accompli' entered English in the mid-19th century, around the 1840s and 1850s, at a time when French was the dominant language of diplomacy, aristocratic society, and intellectual life across Europe. English writers and speakers borrowed it because they felt it carried a precise, slightly detached quality — the sense that a decision had been made coldly and efficiently, leaving no room for protest or reversal.
Interestingly, the word 'accomplish' itself had already been in English since the 14th century, arriving through Old French 'accompliss-', the stem of 'accomplir'. So English speakers had long used the idea embedded in 'accompli' — but they reached back into French a second time to borrow the phrase whole, finding in 'fait accompli' a sharpness and elegance that no native English phrase quite matched.
Today, 'fait accompli' is so embedded in English that most speakers use it without thinking of it as a foreign expression. It tends to carry a slight negative tone — a fait accompli is rarely something people are happy about. It implies that someone acted unilaterally, presenting others with a finished situation they had no chance to influence. The word 'accompli' thus carries centuries of power, strategy, and the quiet arrogance of decisions already made.