France · Frenchambiance
noun · Colloquial
Atmosphere, vibe. Used far more often in French than the borrowed English word is in English — il y a de l'ambiance means a place is buzzing, and 'bonne ambiance' is high praise for an evening.
France · French
French Slang
French slang has a structural quirk no other language on this site shares: verlan, the practice of reversing a word's syllables to make a new one. Fête becomes teuf, femme becomes meuf, and a few verlan words have been reversed a second time. It is productive, generational, and it means that knowing standard French gets you only part of the way.
The other major source is argot from Paris and Marseille, plus a steady stream of borrowings from Arabic through the banlieues. The entries below note which stream a word comes from, because it tells you a great deal about who says it.
54 terms, each with definitions and worked examples.
By topic
Each page below collects every French term we have on one subject, side by side.
Start with these
The terms below carry the most usage detail — register, origin and the situations where they go wrong. They are the ones worth reading in full before the rest.
All French slang A–Z
54 terms
Terms beginning with A
Terms beginning with B
bidule
noun · Colloquial
A gadget or doohickey — a placeholder for a small object, usually one with a mechanism.
blé
noun · Informal
Money. One of several French food-words for cash, alongside oseille (sorrel) and fric.
bof
interjection · Colloquial · BOFF
Meh. Signals indifference or a lukewarm opinion, and is a complete answer on its own.
bosser
verb · Informal
To work, especially to work hard. Bosser dur is to graft.
bouffer
verb · Informal
To eat — bluntly and without ceremony. La bouffe is the noun: grub, food.
boulot
noun · Colloquial · boo-LOH
Work; a job. Métro, boulot, dodo — 'commute, work, sleep' — is the standard French summary of a dreary routine.
bourré
adjective · Informal
Drunk. The everyday word for it, and not especially crude.
+1 more sense
bref
interjection, adverb · Colloquial
Anyway; in short. Used to cut a digression short and get back to the point, or to end a story that has run out of road.
Terms beginning with C
c'est pas faux
phrase · Colloquial
Fair point; you're not wrong. Grudging agreement, often from someone who did not want to concede the point.
ça marche
phrase · Colloquial
That works; okay; sounds good. Agreement to a plan, and the standard confirmation from a waiter taking your order.
carrément
adverb, interjection · Colloquial · kah-ray-MAHN
Completely, downright, absolutely.
+1 more sense
chelou
adjective · Informal
Shady, weird, off. Of people, places and situations that don't feel right.
chiant
adjective · Vulgar
Deeply annoying; boring to the point of pain. Stronger than relou and rather cruder.
Use with care
chouette
adjective, interjection · Dated
Nice, lovely, great. Gently dated — warm, a little old-fashioned, and the sort of word a grandparent uses approvingly.
Terms beginning with D
déconner
verb · Vulgar
To mess about; to talk nonsense. Tu déconnes? — 'are you kidding?'
+2 more senses
Use with care
dégoûté
adjective · Informal
Gutted, bitterly disappointed. Nothing to do with revulsion in this use — it is the French equivalent of British 'gutted'.
du coup
phrase, adverb · Colloquial
So; therefore; as a result. Nominally causal, in practice an all-purpose connector used several times a sentence by many speakers.
Terms beginning with E
Terms beginning with F
Terms beginning with G
galère
noun, adjective · Colloquial
A nightmare; a real struggle. Quelle galère! — 'what a palaver'.
+1 more sense
gars
noun · Colloquial · GAH — the r and s are silent
A guy; a lad. Slightly softer and more rural-sounding than mec. Les gars addresses a group.
genre
adverb, noun · Informal
Like. A quotative and approximator, precisely parallel to English 'like': il a fait genre 'je sais pas'.
+1 more sense
glander
verb · Informal
To laze about, to do nothing in particular. A glandeur is a layabout.
grave
adverb, interjection · Informal
Very, really. An intensifier: c'est grave bien, 'it's really good'.
+1 more sense
gueule de bois
noun, phrase · Informal
A hangover. The image is of a mouth so dry it might be carved from wood.
Terms beginning with K
Terms beginning with L
Terms beginning with M
machin
noun · Colloquial
A thingamajig; also a person whose name you've forgotten. Monsieur Machin is the French 'Mr Whatsisname'.
mec
noun · Informal · MEK
A guy, a bloke. The everyday word for an unnamed man.
+2 more senses
merde
interjection, noun · Vulgar
Damn; shit. General-purpose frustration.
+1 more sense
Use with care
meuf
noun · Informal · MUHF
A woman; a girl. Also 'my girlfriend': ma meuf.
Terms beginning with N
Terms beginning with O
Terms beginning with P
picoler
verb · Informal
To drink alcohol, usually to excess. Implies a habit rather than an occasion.
pote
noun · Informal · POT
A mate, a pal. Warmer than copain and used of close friends.
putain
interjection · Vulgar · pu-TAN
Damn; bloody hell. The most common French expletive, expressing anything from awe to fury.
+2 more senses
Use with care
Terms beginning with Q
Terms beginning with R
Terms beginning with S
seum
noun · Informal · SUHM
Bitterness, rage, the sting of a defeat. Avoir le seum is to be gutted and furious at once — there is no single English word for it.
soûler
verb · Informal
To exasperate; to wear someone down with talk. Tu me soûles — 'you're doing my head in'.
sympa
adjective · Colloquial
Nice, friendly, pleasant. Of people above all, but also of places and plans. One of the most-used adjectives in spoken French.
Terms beginning with T
teuf
noun · Informal
A party. Verlan for fête.
thune
noun · Informal · TOON
Money, cash.
trop
adverb · Colloquial
Really, so. In informal speech trop has lost its sense of excess and simply intensifies: c'est trop bien means 'it's brilliant', not 'it's too good'.
truc
noun · Colloquial
A thing; a whatsit. The universal placeholder for an object whose name escapes you.
+2 more senses
Terms beginning with V
verlan
noun · Colloquial · vehr-LAHN
The French practice of inverting a word's syllables to create a slang form. Not a single word but a whole productive system, and the single most distinctive feature of French slang.
voilà
interjection · Colloquial
There you go; that's it. Handing something over, or confirming that someone has understood.
+1 more sense