French words from Latin
240 French words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 3).
labeur
It is borrowed from Latin labor (“toil, effort, hardship”), with the ending made French on the model of the many words in “-eur”; Wiktionary has it pass through Old French labor. Rey thinks the…
langue
It is inherited from Old French langue, inherited from Latin lingua (“tongue; language”), which already had both senses, and the figurative one of a tongue-shaped object. Rey groups the Latin word…
lever
It is inherited from Old French lever, inherited from Latin levō (“to lighten, relieve; to lift up”), a verb formed from levis (“light (in weight)”), so properly “to make light”. Rey explains that…
libertin
It is borrowed from Latin lībertīnus (“freedman”), a derivative of lībertus (“freed”), formed from līberātus, past participle of līberō (“to free”), the source of libérer. Its special sense comes…
lieue
It is inherited from Old French liue, inherited from Late Latin leuca, also leuga, which Latin writers give as a Gaulish word, the Gaulish mile: from Gaulish. Wiktionary relates it to Proto-Celtic…
luxure
It is borrowed from Latin luxuria (“exuberance, excess; luxury; debauchery”), a derivative of luxus (“excess; luxury”), the source of luxe. The Latin word first applied to the rank growth of plants…
mail
1. The mallet is inherited from Old French mail, inherited from Latin malleus (“hammer, mallet”), a technical word that Rey compares with Old Church Slavonic млатъ (mlatŭ, “hammer”) and Old Norse…
maison
It is inherited from Old French maisun, inherited from Latin mānsiō (“stay; lodging, stopping place”) (accusative “mānsiōnem”), from maneō (“to remain, stay”), whence also manoir. In imperial Latin…
maître
It is inherited from Old French maistre, inherited from Latin magister (“chief, master, teacher”), probably derived from magis (“more”), like minister from minus. Magister replaced classical Latin…
manipule
It is borrowed from Latin manipulus (“handful, sheaf; company of soldiers”), formed from manus (“hand”) and an obscure second element; Littré took it to be pleō (“to fill”). The French word is…
marché
It is inherited from Old French marchié, inherited from Latin mercātus (“trade; market”), from mercor (“to trade”), from merx (“goods”), a word perhaps connected with the god Mercury. It is a…
masser
1. “To mass” is formed from masse “mass” with the ending -er. The noun is inherited from Latin massa (“lump of dough; mass”), from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “barley cake”). 2. “To massage” is…
mèche
It is inherited from Old French mece, inherited from Vulgar Latin *micca (“wick”), a Gallo-Romance alteration, under the influence of Latin muccus (“mucus”), of Latin myxa (“lamp wick”), which is…
médical
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin medicālis (“healthy; curable”), an altered form of classical Latin medicīnālis, the source of médicinal; both go back to medicus (“physician”). Bloch and Wartburg…
menu
It is inherited from Old French menu, inherited from Latin minūtus (“small, fine”), the past participle of minuō (“to lessen”), which shares its stem with minus (“less”). In popular Latin minūtus…
mètre
1. The unit is borrowed from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, “measure”), adopted by a law of 26 March 1791 during the work on the metric system. Late Latin metrum already meant a measuring instrument…
meute
It is inherited from Old French muete, inherited from Vulgar Latin *movita, the feminine used as a noun of *movitus, a past participle of Latin moveō (“to move”) rebuilt on the verb's stem beside…
milice
It is borrowed from Latin mīlitia (“military service; campaign”), from mīles (“soldier”), a word of unknown origin, perhaps borrowed from Etruscan. In Church Latin “militia” was also applied to the…
mirage
It is formed from mirer (“to look at, (reflexive) to be reflected”) with the suffix -age. The verb is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mīrāre (“to look at attentively”), from classical Latin mīrārī (“to…
mobile
It is borrowed from Latin mōbilis (“movable; changeable, fickle”), a contraction of “*movibilis”, from moveō (“to move”). The same Latin word, inherited, gave meuble, of which “mobile” is a learned…
mode
It is borrowed from Latin modus (“measure; manner, way, (in music) mode, (in grammar) mood”), first as a feminine noun because of its ending in “-e”; the masculine was reintroduced from the mid-15th…
modeste
It is borrowed from Latin modestus (“moderate; calm; decent; reserved”), from modus (“measure”), the source of mode “manner”. The adverb “modestement” and “modestie” are recorded a little earlier…
momie
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin mumia, “mummia” (first half of the 12th century), the bituminous substance taken from embalmed bodies and used as a medicine, itself from Arabic مومياء (mūmiyāʔ…
monétaire
It is borrowed from Late Latin monētārius (“of money, monetary”) (5th century), from Latin monēta (“mint; coinage”), the source of the inherited monnaie; in classical Latin “monetarius” referred to…
monnaie
It is inherited from Old French monoie, inherited from Latin monēta (“mint; coined money”). Monēta was first a surname of Juno, Juno Moneta, and coins were struck in or beside her temple on the…
montagne
It is inherited from Old French montaigne, inherited from Late Latin montānea, the feminine used as a noun of the Late Latin adjective montāneus, a variant of classical Latin montānus (“of the…
moulin
It is inherited from Old French molin, inherited from Late Latin molīnum (“mill”) (6th century), derived from mola (“millstone”), the source of meule, or, as Rey and Wiktionary have it, from the…
moyen
It is inherited from Old French meien, inherited from Latin mediānus (“of the middle”), an imperial Latin derivative of medius (“middle”). The Petit Robert traces “medius” to the Indo-European root…
multiple
It is borrowed from Latin multiplex (“with many folds; manifold, numerous”), formed from multus (“much, many”) and the element “-plex” of multiplicative adjectives such as duplex and simplex, which…
nomenclature
It is borrowed from Latin nōmenclātūra (“a calling by name; list of names”), from nōmenclātor, the slave who told his master the names of the people he met, formed from nōmen (“name”) and calō (“to…
norme
It is borrowed from Latin nōrma (“carpenter's square; rule”), a technical word also used figuratively for a rule of conduct, often together with “regula” (see règle). Rey thinks it was probably…
nouveau
It is inherited from Old French novel, inherited from Latin novellus (“young, new, recent”), a diminutive of novus (“new”), the source of neuf. Rey notes that “novellus” was first a rural word for…
oblat
It is borrowed from Late Latin oblātus (“offered”), the past participle of Latin offerō (“to offer”) (see offrir), used as a noun in Church Latin for a child offered to a monastery. The feminine…
océan
It is borrowed from Latin Ōceanus (“Ocean (god of the sea); the Atlantic”), from Ancient Greek Ὠκεανός (Ōkeanós), in Homer the mythical river flowing round the earth, then the outer sea bordering…
ogre
It is inherited from Old French ogre, probably an alteration of an unattested *orc, inherited from Latin Orcus (“god of the underworld; the underworld”), with the “r” moved, perhaps under the…
opter
It is borrowed from Latin optō (“to examine; to choose; to wish”), a word little represented in the Romance languages. Rey describes it as the frequentative of an unattested “*opiare” “to choose”, a…
oreille
It is inherited from Old French oreille, inherited from Vulgar Latin oricla, inherited from Latin auricula (“ear; hearing”), a diminutive of auris (“ear”), which hardly survives in the Romance…
paix
It is inherited from Old French pais, inherited from Latin pāx (“peace”) (genitive “pācis”). Bloch and Wartburg explain the Old French form as remade on the verb apaiser, replacing the regular…
panais
It is inherited from Old French pasnaie, inherited from Latin pastināca (“parsnip, carrot”), a name of several umbellifers, which Rey and the Petit Robert derive, perhaps, from pastinum (“dibble…
pantomime
It is borrowed from Latin pantomīmus (“mime actor”), from Hellenistic Greek Ancient Greek παντόμιμος (pantómimos), formed from παντο- (panto-, “all”) and μῖμος (mîmos, “mime”), literally “one who…
passe
It is a back-formation from passer, which is inherited from Vulgar Latin *passāre, from passus (“step, pace”). The slang sense “a prostitute's brief encounter with a client” is compared by the TLFi…
passé
It is the past participle of passer used as a noun, the participle having been an adjective since the late 11th century (“Chanson de Guillaume”). The verb is inherited from Vulgar Latin *passāre…
pâte
It is inherited from Old French paste, inherited from Late Latin pasta (“dough”) (4th century, Marcellus Empiricus), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá, “dish of barley and cheese”), the neuter plural…
pendre
It is inherited from Old French pendre, inherited from Vulgar Latin *pendĕre, from classical Latin pendēre (“to hang, be suspended”), with a change of conjugation after the related transitive verb…
percer
It is inherited from Old French percier, inherited from Vulgar Latin *pertūsiāre (“to bore through”), formed on “pertusum”, the supine of classical Latin pertundō (“to bore through”), from per…
perdre
It is inherited from Old French perdre, inherited from Latin perdō (“to destroy, ruin; to waste; to lose”), formed from per- (“thoroughly”) and dō (“to give”), so properly “to give away to no…
personnel
It is borrowed from Late Latin persōnālis (“relating to a person”), a term of Latin grammar and law, from persōna (“mask; person”). By surface analysis it is personne + -el. The old spelling was…
pervenche
It is inherited from Old French parvenche, inherited from Late Latin pervinca, a form implied by Italian pervinca and Catalan pervinca, short for Latin vincapervinca, the plant's Latin name. The…
planète
It is borrowed from Late Latin planēta (“wandering star”) (2nd century), a remaking of the plural “planētēs”, from Ancient Greek πλανήτης (planḗtēs, “wanderer”), used in “planêtes astéres”…
plant
It is a back-formation from planter, which is inherited from Latin plantō (“to plant”). It is a doublet of plan “plan, map”, which Bloch and Wartburg explain as the same word, confused in writing…
planter
It is inherited from Old French planter, inherited from Latin plantō (“to tread down the soil; to plant”), used in rustic Latin for pressing down the soil round a cutting. The Latin verb is from…
plomb
It is inherited from Old French plum, inherited from Latin plumbum (“lead; lead shot; lead pipe”). The origin of the Latin word is obscure; it is probably borrowed from a Mediterranean language…
porter
1. “To carry” is inherited from Old French porter, inherited from Latin portō (“to carry, convey; to bring into port”), related to Latin porta (“gate”) and Latin portus (“harbour”) (see porte and…
poule
It is inherited from Old French poule, inherited from Latin pulla (“young hen”), the feminine of pullus (“young of an animal; chicken”), the source of poulain. Latin “pullus” was used early for a…
pouls
It is inherited from Old French pulz, inherited from Latin pulsus (“push, blow”), used in medicine in “pulsus venarum, pulsus arteriarum” “the beating of the veins, of the arteries”, the action noun…
prairie
It is inherited from Old French praerie, inherited from Vulgar Latin *prātāria, formed with the suffix -āria on prāta, the neuter plural of Latin prātum (“meadow”), taken as a feminine singular. It…
premier
It is inherited from Latin prīmārius (“of the first rank”), a derivative of Latin prīmus (“first”), which survived in Old French as “prin”, still used around Lyon for “fine, thin” (see prime…
prestige
It is borrowed from Latin praestīgium (“trickery; illusion”), a neuter singular formed from the more usual feminine plural praestīgiae (“conjuring tricks, illusions”). This comes by dissimilation…
preuve
It is a back-formation from prouver, made on the old stressed forms of the verb (“il prueve”), the verb being inherited from Latin probō (“to test; to approve; to prove”). Littré and Wiktionary also…
preux
It is inherited from Old French proz, inherited from Late Latin *prōdis, an adjective formed on Late Latin prōde (“useful, profitable”), attested from the 4th century in “prode est”, a wrong…