jolie-laide
adj.— «Simon Doonan, Barneys creative director, says pugs are “very jolie-laide.” That’s a French term for a woman who is oddly attractive though not conventionally beautiful. And that, says Doonan, “is very much what is happening in fashion right now.”» —“Pug o’ my heart” by Valli Herman Los Angeles Times May 6, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ahmed, a native speaker of Arabic who also speaks French, wonders how he should pronounce words from those languages when speaking English. For example, should he model the pronunciation for the name of the writer Kahlil Ghibran the country of Qatar...
How and why do words from one language find their way into another? Vietnamese, for instance, includes lots of words borrowed or adapted from French. Such linguistic mixing often happens when languages brush up against each other and speakers reach...
The catchword “jolie laide” must have been invented for Sarah Jessica Parker.