Lancée

Lancée is a French term that primarily serves as the feminine past participle of the verb lancer, meaning "launched" or "thrown." It functions as an adjective that must agree in gender and number with the noun it describes.

In everyday usage, lancer is used to indicate that something has been started or set in motion. As an adjective, lancé/ lancée describes the result of that action: for example, une campagne lancée (a launched campaign) or la fusée lancée (the launched rocket). In compound tenses with the auxiliary être, the past participle agrees with the subject, so a feminine subject yields lancée: La fusée a été lancée, and the phrase translates as “the rocket has been launched.”

Lancée also appears in phrases that denote completion of initiation or deployment, such as des projets lancés or des idées lancées, where the feminine form matches feminine nouns. The masculine counterpart is lancé, used with masculine nouns like un projet lancé or un produit lancé.

Etymology traces lancée to lancer, which derives from Old French and ultimately from Latin lancare, meaning to throw, with lancer meaning to throw or launch. The form lancée reflects standard French gender agreement rules for past participles used as adjectives.

In summary, lancée is best understood as the feminine form of the past participle lancer, used to describe something that has been launched or started and to agree with the noun it modifies. It is common in business, science, and everyday French to indicate completed initiation of campaigns, projects, products, or activities.