Learn French: Le stagiaire a touché le fer brûlant, faute de patience. - The intern touched the scorching iron, for lack of patience.

In French, you usually need a definite article for abstract nouns. However, after the prepositional phrase faute de (meaning "for lack of"), the article is usually dropped. You just attach the bare noun directly, which is why we see faute de patience instead of faute de la patience.

Could I use an infinitive verb after faute de instead of a noun here?

Yes! This lesson covers how faute de works with both nouns and infinitives. Instead of using the noun patience, you could use a verb like attendre (to wait) and say faute d'attendre (for lack of waiting).

Does the word faute in faute de mean "fault" here?

Not exactly. While the noun une faute on its own means "a fault" or "a mistake," the fixed expression faute de specifically means "for lack of" or "for want of." It points to the absence of something rather than pointing blame, even though lacking patience was certainly a mistake in this case!

Why is brûlant used to describe the iron instead of brûlé?