What does ménage à trois mean in English?

Answer 1

I don't think ménage à faux-pas exists in French.

Ménage à trois has the same meaning in French and English.

Ménage has several meanings (housework and couple living together mostly )

to set up house with someone = se mettre en ménage.

Un ménage à trois is usually a way to define a couple in which one has a extra in a love triangle.

Answer 2

In English, the French phrase "ménage � trois" is frequently used as a equivalent for threesome. However, that would not be really understood in French, where translations for threesome as a sexual encounter are "triolisme", "amour � trois", or "trip � trois" (Quebec).

In French, "un ménage � trois" is "a love triangle", in which there are the two spouses, plus a lover in the same household. This is different of a threesome in the sense (in French at least) that one of the two is unaware of what is going on between his spouse and the lover. That situation was a frequent occurence in comedies in the late nineteenth century theatre.

Answer 3

Menage a Trois literally means a house of three.

It came to mean three people who live together and share sex.