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1 entry word
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2 entry word
noun US entrée f -
3 get
get [get]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━3. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. ( = have, receive, obtain) avoir━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Some get + noun combinations may take a more specific French verb.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• first I need to get a better idea of the situation je dois d'abord me faire une meilleure idée de la situation► have/has got• how many have you got? combien en avez-vous ?• I've got it! ( = have safely) (ça y est) je l'ai !• you're okay, I've got you! ne t'en fais pas, je te tiens !b. ( = find) trouver• it's difficult to get a hotel room in August c'est difficile de trouver une chambre d'hôtel en août• you get different kinds of... on trouve plusieurs sortes de...c. ( = buy) acheter• where do they get their raw materials? où est-ce qu'ils achètent leurs matières premières ?d. ( = fetch, pick up) aller chercher• can you get my coat from the cleaners? est-ce que tu peux aller chercher mon manteau au pressing ?• can I get you a drink? est-ce que je peux vous offrir quelque chose ?e. ( = take) prendref. ( = call in) appelerg. ( = prepare) préparerh. ( = catch) [+ disease, fugitive] attraper ; [+ name, details] comprendre• we'll get them yet! on leur revaudra ça !• he'll get you for that! qu'est-ce que tu vas prendre ! (inf)• you've got it in one! (inf) tu as tout compris !• let me get this right, you're saying that... alors, si je comprends bien, tu dis que...j. ( = answer) can you get the phone? est-ce que tu peux répondre ?• I'll get it! j'y vais !► to get + adjective━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► This construction is often translated by a verb alone. Look up the relevant adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• when do you think you'll get it finished? ( = when will you finish it) quand penses-tu avoir fini ?• you can't get anything done round here ( = do anything) il est impossible de travailler ici► to get sb/sth to do sth━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to get sth going [+ machine] faire marcher qch► to get sb/sth somewhere• how can we get it home? comment faire pour l'apporter à la maison ?• to get sth upstairs monter qch► to get sb/sth + preposition• to get o.s. into a difficult position se mettre dans une situation délicate• how do you get there? comment fait-on pour y aller ?• can you get there from London by bus? est-ce qu'on peut y aller de Londres en bus ?• what time do you get to Sheffield? à quelle heure arrivez-vous à Sheffield ?► to get + adverb/preposition• how did that box get here? comment cette boîte est-elle arrivée ici ?• what's got into him? qu'est-ce qui lui prend ?• now we're getting somewhere! (inf) enfin du progrès !• how's your thesis going? -- I'm getting there où en es-tu avec ta thèse ? -- ça avance• where did you get to? où étais-tu donc passé ?• where can he have got to? où est-il passé ?• where have you got to? (in book, work) où en êtes-vous ?► to get + adjective━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► This construction is often translated by a verb alone.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• how stupid can you get? il faut vraiment être stupide !• to get used to sth/to doing s'habituer à qch/à faire► to get + past participle (passive)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Reflexive verbs are used when the sense is not passive.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► to get to + infinitive• students only get to use the library between 2pm and 8pm les étudiants ne peuvent utiliser la bibliothèque qu'entre 14 heures et 20 heures► have got to + infinitive ( = must)• have you got to go and see her? est-ce que vous êtes obligé d'aller la voir ?• you've got to be joking! tu plaisantes !► to get + -ing ( = begin)• I got to thinking that... (inf) je me suis dit que...3. compounds• he's got lots of get-up-and-go il est très dynamique ► get-well card noun carte f de vœux (pour un prompt rétablissement)a. ( = move about) se déplacer• he gets about with a stick/on crutches il marche avec une canne/des béquilles• she gets about quite well despite her handicap elle arrive assez bien à se déplacer malgré son handicapb. ( = travel) voyagerc. [news] circuler• the story had got about that... des rumeurs circulaient selon lesquelles...• it has got about that... le bruit court que...• I don't want it to get about je ne veux pas que ça s'ébruite► get above inseparable transitive verb• to get above o.s. avoir la grosse tête (inf)• you're getting above yourself! pour qui te prends-tu ?► get across[person crossing] traverser ; [meaning, message] passer• the message is getting across that people must... les gens commencent à comprendre qu'il faut...b. ( = manage) se débrouiller• to get along without sth/sb se débrouiller sans qch/qnc. ( = progress) [work] avancer ; [student, invalid] faire des progrèsd. ( = be on good terms) (bien) s'entendre→ get about→ get rounda. [+ object, person, place] atteindreb. [+ facts, truth] découvrirc. ( = suggest) what are you getting at? où voulez-vous en venir ?d. (British) ( = attack) s'en prendre àa. ( = leave) partir• we are not going to be able to get away this year nous n'allons pas pouvoir partir en vacances cette année• get away (with you)! (inf) à d'autres !b. ( = escape) s'échapper• she moved here to get away from the stress of city life elle est venue s'installer ici pour échapper au stress de la vie citadine• he went to the Bahamas to get away from it all il est allé aux Bahamas pour laisser tous ses problèmes derrière lui( = suffer no consequences)• you'll never get away with that! on ne te laissera pas passer ça ! (inf)a. ( = return) revenir• let's get back to why you didn't come yesterday revenons à la question de savoir pourquoi vous n'êtes pas venu hier• can I get back to you on that? (inf) puis-je vous recontacter à ce sujet ? ; (on phone) puis-je vous rappeler à ce sujet ?b. ( = move backwards) reculer• get back! reculez !a. ( = recover) [+ sth lent, sth lost, stolen] récupérer ; [+ strength] reprendre ; [+ one's husband, partner] faire revenirb. ( = return) rendre• I'll get it back to you as soon as I can je vous le rendrai dès que possible► get back at (inf) inseparable transitive verb( = retaliate against) prendre sa revanche sura. ( = pass) passerb. ( = manage) arriver à s'en sortir (inf)• may I get down? (at table) est-ce que je peux sortir de table ?• get down! ( = climb down) descends ! ; ( = lie down) couche-toi !c. ( = make note of) noterd. ( = depress) déprimer• when you get down to it there's not much difference between them en y regardant de plus près il n'y a pas grande différence entre euxa. [person] ( = enter) entrer ; ( = be admitted to university, school) être admis• do you think we'll get in? tu crois qu'on réussira à entrer ?b. ( = arrive) [train, bus, plane] arriverc. ( = be elected) [member] être élu ; [party] accéder au pouvoira. [+ harvest] rentrer• did you get your essay in on time? as-tu rendu ta dissertation à temps ?b. ( = buy) acheterc. ( = fit in) glisser• he managed to get in a game of golf il a réussi à trouver le temps de faire une partie de golf► get into inseparable transitive verba. ( = enter) [+ house, park] entrer dans ; [+ car, train] monter dans• to get into the way of doing sth ( = make a habit of) prendre l'habitude de faire qchb. [+ clothes] mettre• I can't get into these jeans any more je ne peux plus rentrer dans ce jean► get in with inseparable transitive verba. ( = gain favour of) (réussir à) se faire bien voir deb. ( = become friendly with) se mettre à fréquenter• he got in with local drug dealers il s'est mis à fréquenter les trafiquants de drogue du quartier► get off• to get off to a good start [project, discussion] bien partirc. ( = escape) s'en tirerd. ( = leave work) finir ; ( = take time off) se libérera. [+ bus, train] descendre deb. [+ clothes, shoes] enleverc. ( = dispatch) I'll phone you once I've got the children off to school je t'appellerai une fois que les enfants seront partis à l'écoled. ( = save from punishment) faire acquittera. to get off a bus/a bike descendre d'un bus/de vélo• get off the floor! levez-vous !b. ( = be excused) (inf) to get off gym se faire dispenser des cours de gym► get off with (inf) inseparable transitive verb► get onb. ( = advance, make progress) avancer• how are you getting on? comment ça marche ? (inf)• how did you get on? comment ça s'est passé ?c. ( = succeed) réussir• if you want to get on, you must... si tu veux réussir, tu dois...d. ( = agree) s'entendre( = put on) [+ clothes, shoes] mettrea. ( = get in touch with) se mettre en rapport avec ; ( = speak to) parler à ; ( = ring up) téléphoner àb. ( = start talking about) aborder• we got on to (the subject of) money nous avons abordé la question de l'argent► get on with inseparable transitive verba. ( = continue) continuer• while they talked she got on with her work pendant qu'ils parlaient, elle a continué à travaillerb. ( = start on) se mettre à• I'd better get on with the job! il faut que je m'y mette !► get out• get out! sortez !• let's get out of here! sortons d'ici !b. ( = escape) s'échapper (of de)• you'll have to do it, you can't get out of it il faut que tu le fasses, tu ne peux pas y échapper• some people will do anything to get out of paying taxes certaines personnes feraient n'importe quoi pour éviter de payer des impôts• he's trying to get out of going to the funeral il essaie de trouver une excuse pour ne pas aller à l'enterrementc. [news] se répandre ; [secret] être éventé• wait till the news gets out! attends que la nouvelle soit ébruitée !a. ( = bring out) [+ object] sortirb. ( = remove) [+ nail, tooth] arracher ; [+ stain] enleverc. ( = free) [+ person] faire sortirb. ( = recover from) to get over an illness se remettre d'une maladie• I can't get over the fact that... je n'en reviens pas que... + subja. [+ person, animal, vehicle] faire passerb. ( = communicate) faire comprendre ; [+ ideas] communiquer► get over with separable transitive verb( = have done with) en finir• I was glad to get the injections over with j'étais content d'en avoir fini avec ces piqûres► get round= get abouta. [+ obstacle, difficulty, law] contourner• I don't think I'll get round to it before next week je ne pense pas trouver le temps de m'en occuper avant la semaine prochaine► get throughb. ( = be accepted, pass) [candidate] être reçu ; [motion, bill] passer• I phoned you several times but couldn't get through je t'ai appelé plusieurs fois mais je n'ai pas pu t'avoird. ( = communicate with) to get through to sb communiquer avec qna. [+ hole, window] passer par ; [+ hedge] passer à travers ; [+ crowd] se frayer un chemin à traversb. ( = do) [+ work] faire ; [+ book] lire (en entier)• we get through £150 per week nous dépensons 150 livres par semained. ( = survive) how are they going to get through the winter? comment vont-ils passer l'hiver ?• we couldn't get through a day without arguing pas un jour ne se passait sans que nous ne nous disputionsa. [+ person, object] faire passer• to get the message through to sb that... faire comprendre à qn que...• this is the only place where villagers can get together c'est le seul endroit où les gens du village peuvent se réunir[+ people, ideas, money] rassembler ; [+ group] former( = pass underneath) passer par-dessous• to get under a fence/a rope passer sous une barrière/une corde► get up• what time did you get up? à quelle heure t'es-tu levé ?b. (on a chair, on stage) montera. we eventually got the truck up the hill on a finalement réussi à faire monter le camion jusqu'en haut de la côtea. ( = catch up with) rattraperb. ( = reach) arriver à• where did we get up to last week? où en sommes-nous arrivés la semaine dernière ?• do you realize what they've been getting up to? tu sais ce qu'ils ont trouvé le moyen de faire ?• what have you been getting up to lately? qu'est-ce que tu deviens ?* * *Note: This much-used verb has no multi-purpose equivalent in French and therefore is very often translated by choosing a synonym: to get lunch = to prepare lunch = préparer le déjeunerget is used in many idiomatic expressions ( to get something off one's chest etc) and translations will be found in the appropriate entry (chest etc). This is also true of offensive comments ( get lost etc) where the appropriate entry would be lostRemember that when get is used to express the idea that a job is done not by you but by somebody else ( to get a room painted etc) faire is used in French followed by an infinitive ( faire repeindre une pièce etc)When get has the meaning of become and is followed by an adjective (to get rich/drunk etc) devenir is sometimes useful but check the appropriate entry (rich, drunk etc) as a single verb often suffices ( s'enrichir, s'enivrer etc)For examples and further uses of get see the entry below[get] 1.1) ( receive) recevoir [letter, grant]; recevoir, percevoir [salary, pension]; Television, Radio capter [channel]2) ( inherit)to get something from somebody — lit hériter quelque chose de quelqu'un [article, money]; fig tenir quelque chose de quelqu'un [trait, feature]
3) ( obtain) ( by applying) obtenir [permission, divorce, licence]; trouver [job]; ( by contacting) trouver [plumber]; appeler [taxi]; ( by buying) acheter [item] ( from chez); avoir [ticket]to get something for nothing/at a discount — avoir quelque chose gratuitement/avec une réduction
to get somebody something —
to get something for somebody — ( by buying) acheter quelque chose à quelqu'un
4) ( subscribe to) acheter [newspaper]5) ( acquire) se faire [reputation]6) ( achieve) obtenir [grade, mark, answer]he got it right — ( of calculation) il a obtenu le bon résultat; ( of answer) il a répondu juste
7) ( fetch) chercher [object, person, help]to get somebody something —
8) (manoeuvre, move)to get somebody/something upstairs/downstairs — faire monter/descendre quelqu'un/quelque chose
can you get between the truck and the wall? — est-ce que tu peux te glisser entre le camion et le mur?
9) ( help progress)10) ( contact)11) ( deal with)I'll get it — ( of phone) je réponds; ( of doorbell) j'y vais
12) ( prepare) préparer [breakfast, lunch etc]13) ( take hold of) attraper [person] (by par)I've got you, don't worry — je te tiens, ne t'inquiète pas
to get something from ou off — prendre quelque chose sur [shelf, table]
to get something from ou out of — prendre quelque chose dans [drawer, cupboard]
14) (colloq) ( oblige to give)to get something from ou out of somebody — faire sortir quelque chose à quelqu'un [money]; fig obtenir quelque chose de quelqu'un [truth]
15) (colloq) ( catch) gen arrêter [escapee]got you! — gen je t'ai eu!; ( caught in act) vu!
16) Medicine attraper [disease]17) ( use as transport) prendre [bus, train]18) ( have)to have got — avoir [object, money, friend etc]
19) ( start to have)to get (hold of) the idea ou impression that — se mettre dans la tête que
20) ( suffer)21) ( be given as punishment) prendre [five years etc]; avoir [fine]22) ( hit)to get somebody/something with — toucher quelqu'un/quelque chose avec [stone, arrow]
23) (understand, hear) comprendrenow let me get this right... — alors si je comprends bien...
‘where did you hear that?’ - ‘I got it from Paul’ — ‘où est-ce que tu as entendu ça?’ - ‘c'est Paul qui me l'a dit’
24) (colloq) (annoy, affect)what gets me is... — ce qui m'agace c'est que...
25) (learn, learn of)to get to do — (colloq) finir par faire
how did you get to know ou hear of our organization? — comment avez-vous entendu parler de notre organisation?
26) ( have opportunity)to get to do — avoir l'occasion de faire, pouvoir faire
27) ( start)to get to doing — (colloq) commencer à faire
then I got to thinking that... — puis je me suis dit que...
28) ( must)to have got to do — devoir faire [homework, chore]
you've got to realize that... — il faut que tu te rendes compte que...
29) ( persuade)30) ( have somebody do)31) ( cause)2.1) ( become) devenir [suspicious, old]how lucky/stupid can you get! — il y en a qui ont de la chance/qui sont vraiment stupides!
2) ( forming passive)3) ( become involved in)to get into — (colloq) ( as hobby) se mettre à; ( as job) commencer dans; fig
4) ( arrive)how did you get here? — ( by what miracle) comment est-ce que tu es arrivé là?; ( by what means) comment est-ce que tu es venu?
5) ( progress)6) (colloq) ( put on)to get into — mettre, enfiler (colloq) [pyjamas, overalls]
•Phrasal Verbs:- get at- get away- get back- get by- get down- get in- get into- get off- get on- get onto- get out- get over- get up••get along with you! — (colloq) ne sois pas ridicule!
get away with you! — (colloq) arrête de raconter n'importe quoi! (colloq)
I'll get you (colloq) for that — je vais te le faire payer (colloq)
he's got it bad — (colloq) il est vraiment mordu
to get it together — (colloq) se ressaisir
to get with it — (colloq) se mettre dans le coup (colloq)
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4 on
on [ɒn]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb2. preposition3. adjective4. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When on is an element in a phrasal verb, eg get on, go on, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, such as later on, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. ( = in place) the lid is on le couvercle est mis• if you read on, you'll see that... si tu continues (de lire), tu verras que...• they lived together on and off for six years ils ont vécu ensemble six ans, par intermittence► on and on• they talked on and on for hours ils ont parlé pendant des heures► to be on about sth (inf) ( = talk)he's always on at me il est toujours après moi (inf)► to be on to sb (inf) ( = speak to) parler à qn• he's been on to me about the broken window il m'a parlé du carreau cassé► to be on to sb/sth (inf) ( = have found out about)2. preposition━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When on occurs in a set combination, eg on the right, on occasion, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what page are we on? à quelle page sommes-nous ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you can't wear that shirt, there's a stain on it tu ne peux pas porter cette chemise, elle a une tache► on + island• on an island dans or sur une île• on the island of... dans or sur l'île de...c. ( = on board) dans• he came on the train/bus il est venu en train/en bus• I went on the train/bus j'ai pris le train/le busd. ( = at the time of)► on + noun• on my arrival home à mon arrivée à la maison► on + -ing• on completing the course, she got a job in an office à la fin de son stage elle a trouvé un emploi dans un bureaug. (TV, radio) on the radio/TV à la radio/la télévision• on Radio 3/Channel 4 sur Radio 3/Channel 4h. ( = earning) he's on $19,000 a year il gagne 19 000 dollars par ani. ( = taking, using) the doctor put her on antibiotics le médecin l'a mise sous antibiotiquesj. ( = playing) with Louis Armstrong on trumpet avec Louis Armstrong à la trompettek. ( = about, concerning) surl. ( = doing) he's on a course il suit un coursm. ( = at the expense of) it's on me c'est moi qui paien. (indicating membership) to be on the team/committee faire partie de l'équipe/du comité3. adjectivea. ( = functioning) [machine, engine] en marche ; [radio, TV, light] allumé ; [handbrake] mis ; [electricity] branché ; [tap, gas at mains] ouvert• the "on" switch l'interrupteur mb. ( = taking place) there's a match on at Wimbledon il y a un match à Wimbledon• is the party still on? est-ce que la fête a toujours lieu ?• what's on? (at theatre, cinema) qu'est-ce qu'on joue ? ; (on TV) qu'est-ce qu'il y a à la télévision ?c. ( = on duty) I'm on every Saturday je travaille tous les samedis4. compounds* * *Note: When on is used as a straightforward preposition expressing position ( on the beach, on the table) it is generally translated by sur: sur la plage, sur la table; on it is translated by dessus: there's a table over there, put the key on it = il y a une table là-bas, mets la clé dessuson is often used in verb combinations in English ( depend on, rely on etc). For translations, consult the appropriate verb entry (depend, rely etc)If you have doubts about how to translate a phrase or expression beginning with on ( on demand, on impulse, on top etc) consult the appropriate noun or other entry (demand, impulse, top etc)This dictionary contains usage notes on such topics as dates, islands, rivers etc. Many of these use the preposition on. For the index to these notesFor examples of the above and further uses of on, see the entry below[ɒn] 1.1) ( position) sur [table, coast, motorway etc]2) (indicating attachment, contact)3) ( on or about one's person)4) (about, on the subject of) surhave you heard him on electoral reform? — est-ce que tu l'as entendu parler de la réforme électorale?
5) (employed, active)to be on — faire partie de [team]; être membre de [board, committee]
6) ( in expressions of time)7) ( immediately after)on hearing the truth she... — quand elle a appris la vérité, elle...
8) (taking, using)9) ( powered by)10) ( indicating support) sur11) ( indicating a medium)12) (income, amount of money)to be on £20,000 a year — gagner 20000 livres sterling par an
13) (paid for by, at the expense of)14) ( in scoring)2.1) (taking place, happening)2) ( being performed)what's on? — ( on TV) qu'est-ce qu'il y a à la télé?; (at the cinema, at the theatre) qu'est-ce qu'on joue?
3) (functional, live)to be on — [TV, oven, light] être allumé; [handbrake] être serré; [dishwasher, radio] marcher; [tap] être ouvert
in the ‘on’ position — en position ‘allumé’
4) GB ( permissible)it's just ou simply not on — ( out of the question) c'est hors de question; ( not the done thing) ça ne se fait pas; ( unacceptable) c'est inadmissible
5) (attached, in place)3.to be on — [lid] être mis
1) ( on or about one's person)on with your coats! — allez, mettez vos manteaux!
2) ( ahead in time)20 years on he was still the same — 20 ans plus tard, il n'avait pas changé
3) ( further)4) ( on stage)4.on and off adverbial phrase (also off and on)5.she's been working at the novel on and off for years — ça fait des années que son roman est en chantier
on and on adverbial phraseto go on and on — [speaker] parler pendant des heures; [speech] durer des heures
••what's he on about? — GB qu'est-ce qu'il raconte?
he's been on to me about the lost files — GB il m'a contacté à propos des dossiers perdus
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5 Usage note : be
I am tired= je suis fatiguéCaroline is French= Caroline est françaisethe children are in the garden= les enfants sont dans le jardinIt functions in very much the same way as to be does in English and it is safe to assume it will work as a translation in the great majority of cases.Note, however, that when you are specifying a person’s profession or trade, a/an is not translated:she’s a doctor= elle est médecinClaudie is still a student= Claudie est toujours étudianteThis is true of any noun used in apposition when the subject is a person:he’s a widower= il est veufButLyons is a beautiful city= Lyon est une belle villeFor more information or expressions involving professions and trades consult the usage note Shops, Trades and Professions.For the conjugation of the verb être see the French verb tables.Grammatical functionsThe passiveêtre is used to form the passive in French just as to be is used in English. Note, however, that the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject:the rabbit was killed by a fox= le lapin a été tué par un renardthe window had been broken= la fenêtre avait été casséetheir books will be sold= leurs livres seront vendusour doors have been repainted red= nos portes ont été repeintes en rougeIn spoken language, French native speakers find the passive cumbersome and will avoid it where possible by using the impersonal on where a person or people are clearly involved : on a repeint nos portes en rouge.Progressive tensesIn French the idea of something happening over a period of time cannot be expressed using the verb être in the way that to be is used as an auxiliary verb in English.The presentFrench uses simply the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:I am working= je travailleBen is reading a book= Ben lit un livreIn order to accentuate duration être en train de is used: je suis en train de travailler ; Ben est en train de lire un livre.The futureFrench also uses the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:we are going to London tomorrow= nous allons à Londres demainI’m (just) coming!= j’arrive!I’m (just) going!= j’y vais!The pastTo express the distinction between she read a newspaper and she was reading a newspaper French uses the perfect and the imperfect tenses: elle a lu un journal/elle lisait un journal:he wrote to his mother= il a écrit à sa mèrehe was writing to his mother= il écrivait à sa mèreHowever, in order to accentuate the notion of describing an activity which went on over a period of time, the phrase être en train de (= to be in the process of) is often used:‘what was he doing when you arrived?’‘he was cooking the dinner’= ‘qu’est-ce qu’il faisait quand tu es arrivé?’ ‘il était en train de préparer le dîner’she was just finishing her essay when …= elle était juste en train de finir sa dissertation quand …The compound pastCompound past tenses in the progressive form in English are generally translated by the imperfect in French:I’ve been looking for you= je te cherchaisFor progressive forms + for and since (I’ve been waiting for an hour, I had been waiting for an hour, I’ve been waiting since Monday etc.) see the entries for and since.ObligationWhen to be is used as an auxiliary verb with another verb in the infinitive ( to be to do) expressing obligation, a fixed arrangement or destiny, devoir is used:she’s to do it at once= elle doit le faire tout de suitewhat am I to do?= qu’est-ce que je dois faire?he was to arrive last Monday= il devait arriver lundi derniershe was never to see him again= elle ne devait plus le revoir.In tag questionsFrench has no direct equivalent of tag questions like isn’t he? or wasn’t it? There is a general tag question n’est-ce pas? (literally isn’t it so?) which will work in many cases:their house is lovely, isn’t it?= leur maison est très belle, n’est-ce pas?he’s a doctor, isn’t he?= il est médecin, n’est-ce pas?it was a very good meal, wasn’t it?= c’était un très bon repas, n’est-ce pas?However, n’est-ce pas can very rarely be used for positive tag questions and some other way will be found to express the extra meaning contained in the tag: par hasard ( by any chance) can be very useful as a translation:‘I can’t find my glasses’ ‘they’re not in the kitchen, are they?’= ‘je ne trouve pas mes lunettes’ ‘elles ne sont pas dans la cuisine, par hasard?’you haven’t seen Gaby, have you?= tu n’as pas vu Gaby, par hasard?In cases where an opinion is being sought, si? meaning more or less or is it? or was it? etc. can be useful:it’s not broken, is it?= ce n’est pas cassé, si?he wasn’t serious, was he?= il n’était pas sérieux, si?In many other cases the tag question is simply not translated at all and the speaker’s intonation will convey the implied question.In short answersAgain, there is no direct equivalent for short answers like yes I am, no he’s not etc. Where the answer yes is given to contradict a negative question or statement, the most useful translation is si:‘you’re not going out tonight’ ‘yes I am’= ‘tu ne sors pas ce soir’ ‘si’In reply to a standard enquiry the tag will not be translated:‘are you a doctor?’ ‘yes I am’= ‘êtes-vous médecin?’ ‘oui’‘was it raining?’ ‘yes it was’= ‘est-ce qu’il pleuvait?’ ‘oui’ProbabilityFor expressions of probability and supposition ( if I were you etc.) see the entry be.Other functionsExpressing sensations and feelingsIn expressing physical and mental sensations, the verb used in French is avoir:to be cold= avoir froidto be hot= avoir chaudI’m cold= j’ai froidto be thirsty= avoir soifto be hungry= avoir faimto be ashamed= avoir hontemy hands are cold= j’ai froid aux mainsIf, however, you are in doubt as to which verb to use in such expressions, you should consult the entry for the appropriate adjective.Discussing health and how people areIn expressions of health and polite enquiries about how people are, aller is used:how are you?= comment allez-vous?( more informally) comment vas-tu?( very informally as a greeting) ça va?are you well?= vous allez bien?how is your daughter?= comment va votre fille?my father is better today= mon père va mieux aujourd’huiDiscussing weather and temperatureIn expressions of weather and temperature faire is generally used:it’s cold= il fait froidit’s windy= il fait du ventIf in doubt, consult the appropriate adjective entry.Visiting somewhereWhen to be is used in the present perfect tense to mean go, visit etc., French will generally use the verbs venir, aller etc. rather than être:I’ve never been to Sweden= je ne suis jamais allé en Suèdehave you been to the Louvre?= est-ce que tu es déjà allé au Louvre?or est-ce que tu as déjà visité le Louvre?Paul has been to see us three times= Paul est venu nous voir trois foisNote too:has the postman been?= est-ce que le facteur est passé?The translation for an expression or idiom containing the verb to be will be found in the dictionary at the entry for another word in the expression: for to be in danger see danger, for it would be best to … see best etc.This dictionary contains usage notes on topics such as the clock, time units, age, weight measurement, days of the week, and shops, trades and professions, many of which include translations of particular uses of to be. -
6 Usage note : it
When it is used as a subject pronoun to refer to a specific object (or animal) il or elle is used in French according to the gender of the object referred to:‘where is the book/chair?’ ‘it’s in the kitchen’= ‘où est le livre/la chaise?’ ‘il/elle est dans la cuisine’‘do you like my skirt?’ ‘it’s lovely’= ‘est-ce que tu aimes ma jupe?’ ‘elle est très jolie’However, if the object referred to is named in the same sentence, it is translated by ce (c’ before a vowel):it’s a good film= c’est un bon filmWhen it is used as an object pronoun it is translated by le or la (l’ before a vowel) according to the gender of the object referred to:it’s my book/my chair and I want it= c’est mon livre/ma chaise et je le/la veuxNote that the object pronoun normally comes before the verb in French and that in compound tenses like the perfect and the past perfect, the past participle agrees with it:I liked his shirt - did you notice it?= j’ai aimé sa chemise - est-ce que tu l’as remarquée? or l’as-tu remarquée?In imperatives only, the pronoun comes after the verb:it’s my book - give it to me= c’est mon livre - donne-le-moi (note the hyphens)When it is used vaguely or impersonally followed by an adjective the translation is ce (c’ before a vowel):it’s difficult= c’est difficileit’s sad= c’est tristeBut when it is used impersonally followed by an adjective + verb the translation is il:it’s difficult to understand how…= il est difficile de comprendre comment …If in doubt consult the entry for the adjective in question.For translations for impersonal verb uses (it’s raining, it’s snowing) consult the entry for the verb in question.it is used in expressions of days of the week (it’s Friday) and clock time (it’s 5 o’clock). This dictionary contains usage notes on these and many other topics. For other impersonal and idiomatic uses see the entry it.When it is used after a preposition in English the two words (prep + it) are often translated by one word in French. If the preposition would normally be translated by de in French (e.g. of, about, from etc.) the prep + it = en:I’ve heard about it= j’en ai entendu parlerIf the preposition would normally be translated by à in French (e.g. to, in, at etc.) the prep + it = y:they went to it= ils y sont allésFor translations of it following prepositions not normally translated by de or à (e.g. above, under, over etc.) consult the entry for the preposition. -
7 Usage note : let
When let is used in English with another verb in order to make a suggestion (let’s do it at once), the first person plural - ons of the appropriate verb can generally be used to express this in French: faisons-le tout de suite. (Note that the verb alone translates let us do and no pronoun appears in French.)In the spoken language, however, which is the usual context for such suggestions, French speakers will use the much more colloquial on + present tense or si on + imperfect tense:let’s do it at once= on le fait tout de suite? or si on le faisait tout de suite?let’s go to the cinema tonight= si on allait au cinéma ce soir?let’s go!= allons-y! or on y va!These translations can also be used for negative suggestions:let’s not take or don’t let’s take the bus - let’s walk= on ne prend pas le bus, on y va à pied or ne prenons pas le bus, allons-y à piedFor more examples and particular usages see A1 in the entry let1.When let is used in English with another verb to express defiance or a command (just let him try!) French uses the structure que + present subjunctive:just let him try!= qu’il essaie!don’t let me see you here again!= que je ne te revoie plus ici!For more examples and particular usages see A2 in the entry let1.When let is used to mean allow, it is generally translated by the verb laisser. For examples and particular usages see A3 in the entry let1.For translations of expressions such as let fly, let loose, let slip etc., consult the entry for the second word (fly, loose, slip etc.). -
8 in
in [ɪn]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition2. adverb3. adjective4. plural noun5. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When in is an element in a phrasal verb, eg ask in, fill in, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, eg in danger, weak in, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► in it/them ( = inside it, inside them) dedans• our bags were stolen, and our passports were in them on nous a volé nos sacs et nos passeports étaient dedansb. (people, animals, plants) chez► in + feminine countries, regions, islands en━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Feminine countries usually end in -e.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► en is also used with masculine countries beginning with a vowel or silent h.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► in + masculine country au• in Japan/Kuwait au Japon/Koweït━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note also the following:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► in + plural country/group of islands aux━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━e. (month, year, season) en• in summer/autumn/winter en été/automne/hiver━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━f. ( = wearing) eng. (language, medium, material) en• in marble/velvet en marbre/veloursj. ( = while) en• in trying to save her he fell into the water himself en essayant de la sauver, il est tombé à l'eau2. adverba. ( = inside) à l'intérieur• she opened the door and they all rushed in elle a ouvert la porte et ils se sont tous précipités à l'intérieur━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. (at home, work)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• you're never in! tu n'es jamais chez toi !• is Paul in? est-ce que Paul est là ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► to be in may require a more specific translation.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► in between + noun/pronoun entre• he positioned himself in between the two weakest players il s'est placé entre les deux joueurs les plus faibles• in between adventures, he finds time for... entre deux aventures, il trouve le temps de...► to be in for sth ( = be threatened with)• you don't know what you're in for! (inf) tu ne sais pas ce qui t'attend !• he's in for it! (inf) il va en prendre pour son grade ! (inf)► to be in on sth (inf) ( = know about)the new treatment is preferable in that... le nouveau traitement est préférable car...► to be well in with sb (inf) être dans les petits papiers de qn (inf)3. adjective• it's the in thing to... c'est très à la mode de...4. plural noun5. compounds• to have in-service training faire un stage d'initiation ► in-store adjective [detective] employé par le magasin* * *Note: in is often used after verbs in English ( join in, tuck in, result in, write in etc). For translations, consult the appropriate verb entry (join, tuck, result, write etc)If you have doubts about how to translate a phrase or expression beginning with in ( in a huff, in business, in trouble etc) you should consult the appropriate noun entry (huff, business, trouble etc)This dictionary contains usage notes on such topics as age, countries, dates, islands, months, towns and cities etc. Many of these use the preposition in. For the index to these notesFor examples of the above and particular functions and uses of in, see the entry below[ɪn] 1.in prison/town — en prison/ville
in the film/newspaper — dans le film/journal
I'm in here! — je suis là!; bath, bed
2) (inside, within) dansthere's something in it — il y a quelque chose dedans or à l'intérieur
3) ( expressing a subject or field) dansin insurance — dans les assurances; course, expert
4) (included, involved)to be in on the secret — (colloq) être dans le secret
I wasn't in on it — (colloq) je n'étais pas dans le coup (colloq)
5) ( in expressions of time)6) ( within the space of) en7) ( expressing the future) dans8) ( for) depuisit hasn't rained in weeks — il n'a pas plu depuis des semaines, ça fait des semaines qu'il n'a pas plu
9) (during, because of) dans10) ( with reflexive pronouns)how do you feel in yourself? — est-ce que tu as le moral?; itself
11) (present in, inherent in)12) (expressing colour, composition) en13) ( dressed in) en14) ( expressing manner or medium)‘no,’ he said in a whisper — ‘non,’ a-t-il chuchoté
in pencil/in ink — au crayon/à l'encre
15) ( as regards)rich/poor in minerals — riche/pauvre en minéraux
16) (by)17) ( in superlatives) de18) ( in measurements)19) ( in ratios)a gradient of 1 in 4 — une pente de 25%
20) ( in approximate amounts)in their hundreds ou thousands — par centaines or milliers
21) ( expressing age)2.in old age — avec l'âge, en vieillissant
in and out prepositional phrase3.to weave in and out of — se faufiler entre [traffic, tables]
in that conjunctional phrase dans la mesure où4.1) ( indoors)to ask ou invite somebody in — faire entrer quelqu'un
2) (at home, at work)to be in by midnight — être rentré avant minuit; keep, stay
3) (in prison, in hospital)4) ( arrived)5) Sport6) ( gathered)7) ( in supply)8) ( submitted)5.the homework has to be in tomorrow — le devoir doit être rendu demain; get, power, vote
(colloq) adjectiveto be in —
••to have an in with somebody — US avoir ses entrées chez quelqu'un
to have it in for somebody — (colloq) avoir quelqu'un dans le collimateur (colloq)
you're in for it — (colloq) tu vas avoir des ennuis
he's in for a shock/surprise — il va avoir un choc/être surpris
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9 off
off [ɒf]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition2. adverb3. adjective4. noun5. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When off is an element in a phrasal verb, eg keep off, take off, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, eg off duty, far off, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. prepositiona. ( = from) de━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note the French prepositions used in the following:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. ( = missing from) there are two buttons off my coat il manque deux boutons à mon manteauc. ( = away from) de• the helicopter was just a few metres off the ground l'hélicoptère n'était qu'à quelques mètres du sold. ( = not taking, avoiding) (inf) I'm off coffee/cheese at the moment je ne bois pas de café/ne mange pas de fromage en ce moment2. adverba. ( = away) the house is 5km off la maison est à 5 km• they're off! (in race) les voilà partis !• where are you off to? où allez-vous ?c. ( = removed) he had his coat off il avait enlevé son manteaud. (as reduction) 10% off 10 % de remise or de rabais• I'll give you 10% off je vais vous faire une remise or un rabais de 10 %• they lived together off and on for six years ils ont vécu ensemble six ans, par intermittence3. adjectivea. ( = absent from work) he's been off for three weeks cela fait trois semaines qu'il est absentb. ( = off duty) she's off at 4 o'clock today elle termine à 4 heures aujourd'huic. ( = not functioning, disconnected) [machine, TV, light] éteint ; [engine, gas at main, electricity, water] coupé ; [tap] fermé ; [brake] desserréd. ( = cancelled) [meeting, trip, match] annuléf. (indicating wealth, possession) they are comfortably off ils sont aisés• how are you off for bread? qu'est-ce que vous avez comme pain ?g. ( = not right inf) it was a bit off, him leaving like that ce n'était pas très bien de sa part de partir comme ça• that's a bit off! ce n'est pas très sympa ! (inf)4. noun5. compounds• I came on the off chance of seeing her je suis venu à tout hasard, en pensant que je la verrais peut-être ► off-colour adjective (British)a. ( = bad day)• to sing off-key chanter faux ► off-licence noun (British) ( = shop) magasin m de vins et spiritueux• to go off-line [computer] se mettre en mode autonome• to put the printer off-line mettre l'imprimante en mode manuel ► off-load transitive verb [+ goods] décharger ; [+ task, responsibilities] se décharger de► off-peak (British) adjective [period, time, hour] creux ; [train, electricity] en période creuse ; [telephone call] à tarif réduit (aux heures creuses)• off-peak ticket billet m au tarif réduit heures creuses adverb (outside rush hour) en dehors des heures de pointe ; (outside holiday season) en période creuse ► off-piste adjective adverb━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Dans le monde du théâtre new-yorkais, on qualifie de off-Broadway les pièces qui ne sont pas montées dans les grandes salles de Broadway. Les salles off-Broadway, généralement assez petites, proposent des billets à des prix raisonnables. Aujourd'hui, les théâtres les plus à l'avant-garde sont appelés off-off-Broadway.* * *Note: off is often found as the second element in verb combinations ( fall off, run off etc) and in offensive interjections ( clear off etc). For translations consult the appropriate verb entry (fall, run, clear etc)off is used in certain expressions such as off limits, off colour etc and translations for these will be found under the noun entry (limit, colour etc)For other uses of off see the entry below[ɒf], US [ɔːf] 1.(colloq) noun2.just before the off — ( of race) juste avant le départ
1) ( leaving)to be off — partir, s'en aller
I'm off — gen je m'en vais; ( to avoid somebody) je ne suis pas là
he's off again talking about his exploits! — fig et voilà c'est reparti, il raconte encore ses exploits!
2) ( at a distance)3) ( ahead in time)4) Theatre3.1) ( free)2) ( turned off)3) ( cancelled)to be off — [match, party] être annulé
the ‘coq au vin’ is off — ( from menu) il n'y a plus de ‘coq au vin’
4) ( removed)to have one's leg off — (colloq) se faire couper la jambe
25% off — Commerce 25% de remise
5) (colloq) ( bad)4.to be off — [food] être avarié; [milk] avoir tourné
off and on adverbial phrase par périodes5.1) ( away from in distance)2) ( away from in time)3) (also just off) juste à côté de [kitchen etc]4) ( astray from)5) ( detached from)there's a button off — [cuff etc] il manque un bouton à
6) (colloq) ( no longer interested in)7) (colloq) (also off of)••how are we off (colloq) for...? — qu'est-ce qu'il nous reste comme...? [flour etc]
that's a bit off — (colloq) GB ça c'est un peu fort (colloq)
to feel a bit off(-colour) (colloq) — GB ne pas être dans son assiette (colloq)
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10 out
out [aʊt]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverb2. adjective3. preposition4. noun6. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When out is an element in a phrasal verb, eg get out, go out, look up the verb. When out is part of a set combination, eg day out, look up the noun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adverba. ( = not in) Paul is out Paul est sorti• (the ball is) out! (Tennis) (la balle est) out !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When followed by a preposition, out is not usually translated.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━b. ( = outside) dehors• out you go! sortez !• come in! -- no, I like it out here entre ! -- non, je suis bien ici !► out there ( = in that place) là-bas► out with it! (inf) vas-y, parle !2. adjectivea. [light, fire, gas] éteintb. ( = available) [model, edition, video] sortic. ( = unavailable) (for lending, renting) that book is out ce livre est sortid. ( = revealed) the secret is out le secret n'en est plus une. ( = unconscious) sans connaissanceg. ( = unacceptable) [idea, suggestion] that's right out, I'm afraid il n'en est pas questioni. ( = finished) before the month was out avant la fin du moisj. ( = striking) out on strike en grèvek. ( = unfashionable) passé de model. (flowers, sun) the roses are out les rosiers sont en fleurs3. preposition► out of━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When out of is an element in a phrasal verb, eg run out of, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, eg out of danger, out of the way, look up the noun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. ( = outside) en dehors de, hors deI was glad to be out of it ( = escaped from situation) j'étais bien content d'y avoir échappéc. ( = through) par• he looked like something out of "Star Trek" il semblait tout droit sorti de « Star Trek »━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► In the following dans describes the original position of the thing being moved.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━e. ( = because of) par• out of curiosity/necessity par curiosité/nécessitéf. ( = from among) surg. ( = without) we are out of bread nous n'avons plus de painh. ( = sheltered from) à l'abri dei. ( = eliminated from) éliminé de4. noun[+ homosexual] révéler l'homosexualité de6. compounds► out-of-date adjective [passport, ticket] périmé ; [clothes, theory, concept] démodé ; [word] vieilli► out-of-doors adverb = outdoors* * *Note: out is used after many verbs in English to alter or reinforce the meaning of the verb ( hold out, wipe out, filter out etc). Very often in French, a verb alone will be used to translate these combinations. For translations you should consult the appropriate verb entry (hold, wipe, filter etc)When out is used as an adverb meaning outside, it often adds little to the sense of the phrase: they're out in the garden = they're in the garden. In such cases out will not usually be translated: ils sont dans le jardinout is used as an adverb to mean absent or not at home. In this case she's out really means she's gone out and the French translation is elle est sortieFor the phrase out of see III in the entry belowFor examples of the above and other uses, see the entry below[aʊt] 1.transitive verb révéler l'homosexualité de [person]2.1) ( outside) dehors2) ( from within)to go ou walk out — sortir
to pull/take something out — retirer/sortir quelque chose
3) ( at a distance)4) ( in the world at large)there are a lot of people out there looking for work — il y a beaucoup de gens qui cherchent du travail en ce moment
5) ( absent)to be out — gen être sorti; [strikers] être en grève
6) ( for social activity)7) (published, now public)to be out — [book, exam results] être publié
8) ( in bloom)to be out — [tree, shrub] être en fleurs
to be fully out — [flower] être épanoui
9) ( shining)to be out — [sun, moon, stars] briller
10) ( extinguished)to be out — [fire, light] être éteint
11) Sport, Gamesto be out — [player] être éliminé
‘out!’ — ( of ball) ‘out!’
12) ( unconscious)to be out (cold) — (colloq) gen être dans les pommes (colloq); [boxer] être K.O.
13) (over, finished)14) GB ( incorrect)my watch is two minutes out — ( slow) ma montre retarde de deux minutes; ( fast) ma montre avance de deux minutes
15) (colloq) ( not possible) excluno, that option is out — non, cette solution est exclue
16) (colloq) ( actively in search of)he's just out for what he can get — péj c'est l'intérêt qui le guide
he's out to get you — il t'en veut à mort; ( killer) il veut ta peau (colloq)
17) (colloq) ( not in fashion) passé de mode3.out of prepositional phrase1) ( from)to go ou walk ou come out — sortir
2) ( expressing ratio) sur3) ( part of whole)4) Lawto be out — [jury] être en délibération
5) ( beyond defined limits) hors de [reach, sight]; en dehors de [city]6) ( free from confinement)7) ( sheltered) à l'abri de [sun]8) ( lacking)to be (right) out of — ne plus avoir de [item]
9) ( made from) en [wood, metal]10) ( due to) par [respect]••I want out! — (colloq) je ne marche plus avec vous/eux etc (colloq)
come on, out with it! — (colloq) allez, dis ce que tu as à dire!
to be out and about — ( after illness) être à nouveau sur pied
to be out of it — (colloq) être dans les vapes (colloq)
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11 with
with [wɪð, wɪθ]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. avec• come with me! viens avec moi !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The pronoun is not translated in the following, where it and them refer to things.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• these gloves, I can't drive with them on ces gants-là, je ne peux pas conduire avec━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Note the verbal construction in the following example.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I'm with you ( = understand) je vous suis• sorry, I'm not with you désolé, je ne vous suis pas• I'll be with you in a minute ( = attend to) je suis à vous dans une minute• I'm with you all the way ( = support) je suis à fond avec vous► to be with it (inf) ( = fashionable) être dans le vent (inf)get with it! ( = pay attention) réveille-toi !, secoue-toi ! ; ( = face facts) redescends sur terre !b. ( = on one's person) surc. ( = in the house of, working with) chez• I've been with this company for seven years cela fait sept ans que je travaille pour cette sociétéf. ( = in spite of) malgré• with all his intelligence, he still doesn't understand malgré toute son intelligence, il ne comprend toujours pas• with so much happening it was difficult to... il se passait tellement de choses qu'il était difficile de...• with that, he closed the door sur ce, il a fermé la porte* * *[wɪð, wɪθ]Note: If you have any doubts about how to translate a phrase or expression beginning with with ( with a vengeance, with all my heart, with a bit of luck, with my blessing etc) you should consult the appropriate noun entry (vengeance, heart, luck, blessing etc)with is often used after verbs in English ( dispense with, part with, get on with etc). For translations, consult the appropriate verb entry (dispense, part, get etc)This dictionary contains usage notes on such topics as the human body and illnesses, aches and pains which use the preposition with. For the index to these notesFor further uses of with, see the entry below1) ( in descriptions)2) (involving, concerning) aveca treaty/a discussion with somebody — un traité/une discussion avec quelqu'un
3) ( indicating an agent) avec4) (indicating manner, attitude)with difficulty/pleasure — avec difficulté/plaisir
‘OK,’ he said with a smile/sigh — ‘d'accord,’ a-t-il dit en souriant/soupirant
5) ( according to)6) (accompanied by, in the presence of) avecshe's got her brother with her — ( on one occasion) elle est avec or accompagnée de son frère; ( staying with her) son frère est chez elle
to live with somebody — ( in one's own house) vivre avec quelqu'un; ( in their house) vivre chez quelqu'un
7) (owning, bringing)8) (in relation to, as regards)what's up with Amy? —
what's with Amy? — US qu'est-ce qui ne va pas avec Amy?
9) (showing consent, support)I'm with you 100% ou all the way — je suis tout à fait d'accord avec toi
10) ( because of)sick with worry — malade or mort d'inquiétude
11) ( remaining)with only two days to go before the election — alors qu'il ne reste plus que deux jours avant les élections
12) ( suffering from)people with Aids/leukemia — les personnes atteintes du sida/de la leucémie
13) ( in the care or charge of)14) ( against) avec15) ( showing simultaneity)with that, he left — sur ce, il est parti
16) (employed by, customer of)17) ( in the same direction as)••to be with it — (colloq) ( on the ball) être dégourdi; ( trendy) être dans le vent
I'm not really with it today — (colloq) j'ai l'esprit ailleurs aujourd'hui
get with it! — (colloq) ( wake up) réveille-toi!; ( face the facts) redescends sur terre!
I'm not with you, can you repeat? — je ne te suis pas, tu peux répéter?
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12 and
and [ænd, ənd, nd, ən]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► For set expressions containing the word and, eg now and then, wait and see, look under the other words.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. et• and? et alors ?c. (+ infinitive verb) try and come tâchez de venird. (repetition, continuation) better and better de mieux en mieux* * *[ænd], unstressed [ənd]Note: When used as a straightforward conjunction, and is translated by et: to shout and sing = crier et chanter; Tom and Linda = Tom et Linda; my friend and colleague = mon ami et collègueand is sometimes used between two verbs in English to mean ‘in order to’ ( wait and see, try and relax etc). To translate these expressions, look under the appropriate verb entry (wait, try etc)For examples and other uses, see the entry below1) ( joining words or clauses) et2) ( in numbers)3) ( with repetition)4) ( for emphasis)5) ( in phrases)and that — (colloq) GB et tout ça
and how! — (colloq) et comment!
6) ( alike)7) ( with negative) -
13 Usage note : the
In French, determiners agree in gender and number with the noun they precede ; the is translated by le + masculine singular noun ( le chien), by la + feminine singular noun ( la chaise), by l’ + masculine or feminine singular noun beginning with a vowel or mute ‘h’ (l’auteur, l’homme, l’absence, l’histoire) and by les + plural noun (les hommes, les femmes).When the is used after a preposition in English, the two words (prep + the) are often translated by one word in French. If the preposition would normally be translated by de in French (of, about, from etc.) the prep + the is translated by du + masculine noun ( du chien), by de la + feminine noun ( de la femme), by de l’ + singular noun beginning with a vowel or mute ‘h ’ (de l’auteur, de l’histoire) and by des + plural noun (des hommes, des femmes). If the preposition would usually be translated by à (at, to etc.) the prep + the is translated according to the number and gender of the noun, by au ( au chien), à la ( à la femme), à l’ (à l’enfant), aux (aux hommes, aux femmes).Other than this, there are few problems in translating the into French.The following cases are, however, worth remembering as not following exactly the pattern of the English:the good, the poor etc.= les bons, les pauvres etc.Charles the First, Elizabeth the Second etc.= Charles Premier, Elizabeth Deux etc.she’s THE violinist of the century= c’est LA violoniste du siècle or c’est la plus grande violoniste du sièclethe Tudors, the Batemans etc.= les Tudor, les Bateman etc.For expressions such as the more, the better, see the entry the.This dictionary contains usage notes on such topics as weight measurement, days of the week, rivers, illnesses, aches and pains, the human body, and musical instruments, many of which use the. -
14 never
never [ˈnevər]1. adverba. ne... jamais• I never heard such a thing! je n'ai jamais entendu une chose pareille !► never... again (ne...) plus jamais• never again! plus jamais !► never before• I have never yet been able to find... je n'ai encore jamais pu trouver...b. (emphatic) that will never do! c'est inadmissible !• I've left it behind! -- never! je l'ai oublié ! -- c'est pas vrai ! (inf)• never mind! ça ne fait rien !2. compounds* * *['nevə(r)]Note: When never is used to modify a verb ( she never wears a hat, I've never seen him) it is translated ne...jamais in French; ne comes before the verb, and before the auxiliary in compound tenses, and jamais comes after the verb or auxiliary: elle ne porte jamais de chapeau, je ne l'ai jamais vuWhen never is used without a verb, it is translated by jamais alone: ‘admit it!’ - ‘never!’ = ‘avoue-le!’ - ‘jamais’For examples and particular usages, see the entry below1) ( not ever)never one to refuse a free meal, he agreed — il a accepté parce qu'il ne dit jamais non à un repas gratuit
2) ( as an emphatic negative)3) (expressing surprise, shock)you're never 40! — GB ce n'est pas possible, tu n'as pas 40 ans!
you've never gone and broken it have you! — (colloq) GB ne me dis pas que tu l'as cassé!
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15 no
no [nəʊ]1. particle2. noun3. adjective━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► For set expressions such as by no means, no more, look up the other word━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. ( = not any) pas de• headache or no headache, you'll have to do it (inf) migraine ou pas, tu vas devoir le faire• no nonsense! pas d'histoires ! (inf)4. adverb━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► For set expressions such as no less (than), no longer, no sooner said than done, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ (with comparative) no bigger/stronger/more intelligent than... pas plus grand/fort/intelligent que...5. compounds► no-man's-land noun (in battle) no man's land m ; ( = wasteland) terrain m vague ; ( = indefinite area) zone f mal définie• it's a no-no ( = forbidden) ça ne se fait pas ; ( = impossible) c'est impossible ► no-nonsense adjective [approach, attitude] raisonnable= nowhere* * *[nəʊ] 1. 2.1) (none, not any)to have no money/shoes — ne pas avoir d'argent/de chaussures
there's no chocolate like Belgian chocolate — il n'y a pas de meilleur chocolat que le chocolat belge
2) ( with gerund)there's no denying that... — (il est) inutile de nier que...
3) ( prohibiting)4) ( for emphasis)at no time did I say that... — je n'ai jamais dit que...
5) ( hardly any)3.noun gen non m inv; ( vote against) non m inv4.it's no further/easier than — ce n'est pas plus loin/facile que
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16 Numbers
0 zéro*1 un†2 deux3 trois4 quatre5 cinq6 six7 sept8 huit9 neuf10 dix11 onze12 douze13 treize14 quatorze15 quinze16 seize17 dix-sept18 dix-huit19 dix-neuf20 vingt21 vingt et un22 vingt-deux30 trente31 trente et un32 trente-deux40 quarante50 cinquante60 soixante70 soixante-dixseptante (in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland etc.)71 soixante et onzeseptante et un ( etc)72 soixante-douze73 soixante-treize74 soixante-quatorze75 soixante-quinze76 soixante-seize77 soixante-dix-sept78 soixante-dix-nuit79 soixante-dix-neuf80 quatre-vingts‡81 quatre-vingt-un§82 quatre-vingt-deux90 quatre-vingt-dix ; nonante (in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, etc)91 quatre-vingt-onze ; nonante et un92 quatre-vingt-douze ; nonante-deux ( etc.)99 quatre-vingt-dix-neuf100 cent101 cent un†102 cent deux110 cent dix111 cent onze112 cent douze187 cent quatre-vingt-sept200 deux cents250 deux cent|| cinquante300 trois cents1000 || mille1001 mille un†1002 mille deux1020 mille vingt1200 mille** deux cents2000 deux mille††10000 dix mille10200 dix mille deux cents100000 cent mille102000 cent deux mille1000000 un million‡‡1264932 un million deux cent soixante-quatre mille neuf cent trente-deux1000000000 un milliard‡‡1000000000000 un billion‡‡* In English 0 may be called nought, zero or even nothing ; French is always zéro ; a nought = un zéro.† Note that one is une in French when it agrees with a feminine noun, so un crayon but une table, une des tables, vingt et une tables, combien de tables? - il y en a une seule etc.‡ Also huitante in Switzerland. Note that when 80 is used as a page number it has no s, e.g. page eighty = page quatre-vingt.§ Note that vingt has no s when it is in the middle of a number. The only exception to this rule is when quatre-vingts is followed by millions, milliards or billions, e.g. quatre-vingts millions, quatre-vingts billions etc.Note that cent does not take an s when it is in the middle of a number. The only exception to this rule is when it is followed by millions, milliards or billions, e.g. trois cents millions, six cents billions etc. It has a normal plural when it modifies other nouns, e.g. 200 inhabitants = deux cents habitants.|| Note that figures in French are set out differently ; where English would have a comma, French has simply a space. It is also possible in French to use a full stop (period) here, e.g. 1.000. French, like English, writes dates without any separation between thousands and hundreds, e.g. in 1995 = en 1995.** When such a figure refers to a date, the spelling mil is preferred to mille, i.e. en 1200 = en mil deux cents. Note however the exceptions: when the year is a round number of thousands, the spelling is always mille, so en l’an mille, en l’an deux mille etc.†† Mille is invariable ; it never takes an s.‡‡ Note that the French words million, milliard and billion are nouns, and when written out in full they take de before another noun, e.g. a million inhabitants is un million d’habitants, a billion francs is un billion de francs. However, when written in figures, 1,000,000 inhabitants is 1000000 habitants, but is still spoken as un million d’habitants. When million etc. is part of a complex number, de is not used before the nouns, e.g. 6,000,210 people = six millions deux cent dix personnes.Use of enNote the use of en in the following examples:there are six= il y en a sixI’ve got a hundred= j’en ai centEn must be used when the thing you are talking about is not expressed (the French says literally there of them are six, I of them have a hundred etc.). However, en is not needed when the object is specified:there are six apples= il y a six pommesApproximate numbersWhen you want to say about…, remember the French ending -aine:about ten= une dizaineabout ten books= une dizaine de livresabout fifteen= une quinzaineabout fifteen people= une quinzaine de personnesabout twenty= une vingtaineabout twenty hours= une vingtaine d’heuresSimilarly une trentaine, une quarantaine, une cinquantaine, une soixantaine and une centaine ( and une douzaine means a dozen). For other numbers, use environ (about):about thirty-five= environ trente-cinqabout thirty-five francs= environ trente-cinq francsabout four thousand= environ quatre milleabout four thousand pages= environ quatre mille pagesEnviron can be used with any number: environ dix, environ quinze etc. are as good as une dizaine, une quinzaine etc.Note the use of centaines and milliers to express approximate quantities:hundreds of books= des centaines de livresI’ve got hundreds= j’en ai des centaineshundreds and hundreds of fish= des centaines et des centaines de poissonsI’ve got thousands= j’en ai des milliersthousands of books= des milliers de livresthousands and thousands= des milliers et des milliersmillions and millions= des millions et des millionsPhrasesnumbers up to ten= les nombres jusqu’à dixto count up to ten= compter jusqu’à dixalmost ten= presque dixless than ten= moins de dixmore than ten= plus de dixall ten of them= tous les dixall ten boys= les dix garçonsNote the French word order:my last ten pounds= mes dix dernières livresthe next twelve weeks= les douze prochaines semainesthe other two= les deux autresthe last four= les quatre derniersCalculations in FrenchNote that French uses a comma where English has a decimal point.0,25 zéro virgule vingt-cinq0,05 zéro virgule zéro cinq0,75 zéro virgule soixante-quinze3,45 trois virgule quarante-cinq8,195 huit virgule cent quatre-vingt-quinze9,1567 neuf virgule quinze cent soixante-septor neuf virgule mille cinq cent soixante-sept9,3456 neuf virgule trois mille quatre cent cinquante-sixPercentages in French25% vingt-cinq pour cent50% cinquante pour cent100% cent pour cent200% deux cents pour cent365% troix cent soixante-cinq pour cent4,25% quatre virgule vingt-cinq pour centFractions in FrenchOrdinal numbers in French§1st 1er‡ premier ( feminine première)2nd 2e second or deuxième3rd 3e troisième4th 4e quatrième5th 5e cinquième6th 6e sixième7th 7e septième8th 8e huitième9th 9e neuvième10th 10e dixième11th 11e onzième12th 12e douzième13th 13e treizième14th 14e quatorzième15th 15e quinzième16th 16e seizième17th 17e dix-septième18th 18e dix-huitième19th 19e dix-neuvième20th 20e vingtième21st 21e vingt et unième22nd 22e vingt-deuxième23rd 23e vingt-troisième24th 24e vingt-quatrième25th 25e vingt-cinquième30th 30e trentième31st 31e trente et unième40th 40e quarantième50th 50e cinquantième60th 60e soixantième70th 70e soixante-dixième or septantième (in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland etc.)71st 71e soixante et onzième or septante et unième (etc.)72nd 72e soixante-douzième73rd 73e soixante-treizième74th 74e soixante-quatorzième75th 75e soixante-quinzième76th 76e soixante-seizième77th 77e soixante-dix-septième78th 78e soixante-dix-huitième79th 79e soixante-dix-neuvième80th 80e quatre-vingtième¶81st 81e quatre-vingt-unième90th 90e quatre-vingt-dixième or nonantième (in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland etc.)91st 91e quatre-vingt-onzième, or nonante et unième (etc.)99th 99e quatre-vingt-dix-neuvième100th 100e centième101st 101e cent et unième102nd 102e cent-deuxième196th 196e cent quatre-vingt-seizième200th 200e deux centième300th 300e trois centième400th 400e quatre centième1,000th 1000e millième2,000th 2000e deux millième1,000,000th 1000000e millionièmeLike English, French makes nouns by adding the definite article:the firstthe second= le second (or la seconde etc.)the first three= les trois premiers or les trois premièresNote the French word order in:the third richest country in the world= le troisième pays le plus riche du monde* Note that half, when not a fraction, is translated by the noun moitié or the adjective demi ; see the dictionary entry.† Note the use of les and d’entre when these fractions are used about a group of people or things: two-thirds of them = les deux tiers d’entre eux.‡ This is the masculine form ; the feminine is 1re and the plural 1ers (m) or 1res (f).§ All the ordinal numbers in French behave like ordinary adjectives and take normal plural endings where appropriate.¶ Also huitantième in Switzerland. -
17 force
force [fɔ:s]1. noun• I don't quite see the force of his argument je ne trouve pas que son argument ait beaucoup de poids• to come into force [law, prices] entrer en vigueur► force ofb. ( = power) force fc. ( = body of men) force f• to force o.s. to do sth se forcer à faire qchc. ( = push) to force one's way into entrer de force dansd. ( = break open) [+ lock] forcer3. compounds* * *[fɔːs] 1.1) (of blow, explosion, collision) force f; ( of fall) choc m2) gen, Military force f3) fig force ffrom force of habit/of circumstance — par la force de l'habitude/des circonstances
4) ( influence) force f5) [U] ( organized group) forces fpl7) Physics force f8) Meteorology force f2.forces plural noun Military (also armed forces)3.the forces — les forces fpl armées
in force adverbial phrase1) (in large numbers, strength) en force2) gen, Law [law, prices, ban] en vigueur4.transitive verb1) (compel, oblige) forcer ( to do à faire)to be forced to do ou into doing — gen être forcé de faire
2) ( push)to force one's way through [something] — se frayer un chemin à travers or dans [crowd, jungle]
3) ( apply great pressure to) forcer [door, window, safe]; forcer sur [screw]to force an entry — Law entrer par effraction
4) Agriculture forcer [plant]; engraisser [animal]5.1) ( push oneself)to force oneself — se forcer ( to do à faire)
2) ( impose oneself)•Phrasal Verbs:- force in- force on- force up•• -
18 next
next [nekst]1. adjective• come back next week/month revenez la semaine prochaine/le mois prochain• during the next five days he did not go out il n'est pas sorti pendant les cinq jours qui ont suivib. (in series, list) ( = following) [page, case] suivant ; ( = which is to come) prochain• who's next? à qui le tour ?• next please! au suivant !• the next thing to do is... la première chose à faire maintenant est de...• he saw that the next thing to do was... il a vu que ce qu'il devait faire ensuite (c')était...• the next thing I knew, he had gone (inf) et tout d'un coup, il avait disparu• the next size up/down la taille au-dessus/au-dessousc. ( = immediately adjacent) [house, street, room] d'à côté2. adverba. ensuite• what shall we do next? qu'allons-nous faire maintenant ?• a new dress! whatever next? une nouvelle robe ! et puis quoi encore ?b. (with superlative) the next best thing would be to speak to his brother à défaut le mieux serait de parler à son frère3. noun4. compounds• "next of kin" (on forms) « nom et prénom de votre plus proche parent »• who is your next of kin? qui est votre plus proche parent ?* * *Note: When next is used as an adjective it is generally translated by prochain when referring to something which is still to come or happen and by suivant when referring to something which has passed or happened: I'll be 40 next year = j'aurai 40 ans l'année prochaine; the next year, he went to Spain = l'année suivante il est allé en Espagne[nekst] 1.he's happy one minute, sad the next — il passe facilement du rire aux larmes
the next to speak was Emily — ensuite, c'est Emily qui a parlé
2.the week/month after next — dans deux semaines/mois
1) (in list, order or series) ( following) suivant; ( still to come) prochain‘next!’ — ‘au suivant!’
‘who's next?’ — ‘c'est à qui le tour?’
‘you're next’ — ‘c'est à vous’
next to last — avant-dernier/-ière
2) ( in expressions of time) ( in the future) prochain; ( in the past) suivantnext Thursday —
(the) next thing I knew, the police were at the door — la police était à la porte avant que j'aie eu le temps de comprendre ce qui se passait
3) ( adjacent) [room, street] voisin; [building, house] voisin, d'à côté3.1) ( afterwards) ensuite, après2) ( now)next, I'd like to say... — je voudrais dire maintenant...
3) ( on a future occasion)4) ( nearest in order)after 65, 50 is the next best score — c'est 65 le meilleur score, ensuite c'est 50
4.the next best thing would be to... — à défaut, le mieux serait de...
next to adverbial phrase presque5.next to prepositional phrase à côté denext to Picasso, my favourite painter is Chagall — après Picasso c'est Chagall mon peintre préféré
••he's as honest as the next man ou person — il est aussi honnête que n'importe qui
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19 up
up [ʌp]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition2. adverb3. noun4. adjective7. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When up is the second element in a phrasal verb, eg come up, throw up, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, eg this way up, close up, look up the other word.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition• to be up a tree/up a ladder être dans un arbre/sur une échelle2. adverb━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When used with a preposition, up is often not translated.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• people up and down the country are saying... partout dans le pays les gens disent...• are you up for it? (inf) ( = willing) tu es partant ? (inf) ; ( = fit) tu te sens d'attaque (inf) ?► up to ( = as far as) jusqu'à• what page are you up to? à quelle page en êtes-vous ?► to be up to sth ( = capable of)• is he up to doing research? est-il capable de faire de la recherche ?• it isn't up to his usual standard ( = equal to) il peut faire bien mieux que cela► to feel or be up to sth ( = strong enough for)• he really isn't up to going back to work yet il n'est vraiment pas en état de reprendre le travail► to be up to sth (inf) ( = doing)what is he up to? qu'est-ce qu'il fabrique ? (inf)• what have you been up to? qu'est-ce que tu as fabriqué ? (inf)• shall I do it? -- it's up to you je le fais ? -- à vous de voir• if it were up to me... si ça ne tenait qu'à moi...3. noun4. adjective• get up! debout !• she was up all night because the baby was ill elle n'a pas fermé l'œil de la nuit parce que le bébé était maladeb. ( = raised) the blinds were up les stores n'étaient pas baissés• "this side up" (on parcel) « haut »• hands up, everyone who knows the answer levez le doigt si vous connaissez la réponse• hands up! (to gunman) haut les mains !c. ( = installed, built)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► Whichever verb is implicit in English is usually made explicit in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• we've got the curtains/pictures up at last nous avons enfin posé les rideaux/accroché les tableauxe. ( = finished) his leave is up sa permission est terminée• time's up! c'est l'heure !f. ( = wrong) (inf) what's up? qu'est-ce qui ne va pas ?• what's up with him? qu'est-ce qu'il a qui ne va pas ?• what's up with the car? qu'est-ce qui ne va pas avec la voiture ?• what's up with your leg? qu'est-ce qui t'est arrivé à la jambe ? (inf)• he's been rather up and down recently il a eu des hauts et des bas récemment► up and running ( = functioning) opérationnel7. compounds* * *Note: up appears frequently in English as the second element of phrasal verbs ( get up, pick up etc). For translations, consult the appropriate verb entry (get, pick etc)[ʌp] 1.1) ( out of bed)2) (higher in amount, level)sales/prices are up (by 10%) — les ventes/les prix ont augmenté (de 10%)
shares/numbers are up — les actions sont/le nombre est en hausse
production is up (by) 5% — la production a augmenté de 5%
his temperature is up 2 degrees — sa température a augmenté de 2°
sales are 10% up on last year — les ventes ont augmenté de 10% par rapport à l'an dernier
3) (colloq) ( wrong)4) (erected, affixed)5) ( open)6) ( finished)‘time's up!’ — ‘le temps est épuisé!’
it's all up (colloq) with him — il est fini (colloq)
7) ( facing upwards)‘this side up’ — (on parcel, box) ‘haut’
8) ( rising)her blood's up — fig la moutarde lui monte au nez
9) ( pinned up)10) ( cheerful)11) ( being repaired)12) ( in upward direction)13) ( on trial)2.1) ( high)up here/there — là-haut
up in the tree/the clouds — dans l'arbre/les nuages
up to/in London — à Londres
up to/in Scotland — en Écosse
all the way up — jusqu'en haut, jusqu'au sommet
2) ( ahead) d'avanceshe's 40-15 up — ( in tennis) elle mène 40-15
3) ( upwards)t-shirts from £2 up — des t-shirts à partir de deux livres
4) ( to high status)3.1) (at, to higher level)2) ( in direction)4.up above adverbial phrase, prepositional phrase gen au-dessus; Religion au ciel5.up against prepositional phrase6. 7.to be ou come up against opposition — rencontrer de l'opposition
up and down adverbial phrase, prepositional phrase1) ( to and fro)to walk ou pace up and down — aller et venir, faire les cent pas
2) ( throughout)8.up and running adjectival phrase, adverbial phraseto be up and running — [company, project] bien marcher; [system] bien fonctionner
9.to get something up and running — faire marcher or fonctionner quelque chose
up for prepositional phrase10.the subject up for discussion is... — le sujet qu'on aborde est...
up to prepositional phrase1) ( to particular level) jusqu'à2) ( as many as) jusqu'à, près dereductions of up to 50% — des réductions qui peuvent atteindre 50%
tax on profits of up to £150,000 — les impôts sur les bénéfices de moins de 150000 livres sterling
3) ( until) jusqu'àup to 10.30 pm — jusqu'à 22 h 30
4) ( good enough for)I'm not up to it — ( not capable) je n'en suis pas capable; ( not well enough) je n'en ai pas la force
this work wasn't up to your usual standard — ce travail n'est pas au niveau de ce que vous faites d'habitude
6) ( doing)what are those children up to? — qu'est-ce qu'ils fabriquent (colloq) ces enfants?
11. 12.they're up to something — ils mijotent (colloq) quelque chose
intransitive verb (p prés etc - pp-)••to be (well) up on — s'y connaître en [art, history etc]; être au courant de [news, developments]
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20 better
I.II.❢ When better is used as an adjective it is translated by meilleur or mieux depending on the context (see below, and note that meilleur is the comparative form of bon, mieux the comparative form of bien). The choice between meilleur and mieux in the construction to be better than depends on whether bon or bien would be used originally with the noun. Other constructions translate as follows: this is a better bag/car = ce sac/cette voiture est mieux ; it is better to do = il vaut mieux faire or il est mieux de faire. As an adverb, better can almost always be translated by mieux. For more examples and particular usages, see the entry below.A n1 (something preferable, more excellent) the better le/la meilleur/-e m/f ; much ou by far the better of the two de loin le/la meilleur/-e des deux ;2 ( more desirable state of affairs) to deserve/expect/hope for better mériter/attendre/espérer mieux ; so much the better, all the better tant mieux ; a change ou turn for the better une amélioration ; to change ou take a turn for the better s'améliorer ; the weather changed, and not for the better le temps a changé, et pas en mieux ;1 (more pleasing, satisfactory) [weather, day, news, joke, forecast, review, salary, price, range] meilleur ; [party, game, book, film, activity] mieux ; playing is better than watching jouer, c'est mieux que de regarder ; to get better s'améliorer ; the weather is no better le temps n'est pas meilleur or ne s'est pas amélioré ; things are getting better ça va mieux ; ‘good news?’-‘it couldn't be better!’ ‘bonnes nouvelles?’-‘on ne peut meilleures!’ ; to look/sound better être/sonner mieux ; to taste/smell better être/sentir meilleur, avoir un/-e meilleur/-e goût/odeur ; it would taste all the better for some salt ce serait meilleur avec du sel ; it looked all the better for it cela n'en était que mieux ; that's better! voilà qui est mieux! ;2 (well, recovered) to be better [patient, cold, headache] aller mieux ; to feel all the better for se sentir mieux après [rest, meal] ; better than I/it was mieux qu'avant ;3 ( happier) [mood] meilleur ; to feel better se sentir mieux ; I'd feel better if you did/didn't do je me sentirais mieux si tu faisais/ne faisais pas ; if it makes you feel any better ( less worried or awkward) si ça t'aide à te sentir mieux ; ( less sad) si ça peut te consoler ; to feel better about doing ( less nervous) se sentir à même de faire ; (less worried, guilty) avoir moins de scrupules à faire ;4 (of superior quality, class) [food, result, film, book, quality] meilleur ; [car, carpet, district, family] mieux ; [land, school, hotel] meilleur, mieux ; [coat, shoes, furniture] de meilleure qualité ; one of the better schools une des meilleures écoles ; he went to a better school than I did ou than me il est allé dans une école meilleure que la mienne ;5 (more virtuous, commendable) [person] mieux ; [life, influence, nature] meilleur ; to be a better man/woman than être mieux que ; you're a better man than I am! tu es mieux que moi! ; to be no better than sb ne pas être mieux que qn ; to be no better than a thief être un voleur ni plus ni moins ;6 ( more skilled) [doctor, actor, teacher] meilleur ; to be a better poet than sb être meilleur poète que qn ; to be a better swimmer than sb nager mieux que qn ; to be a better singer than dancer chanter mieux que l'on ne danse ; to be a better father than husband être meilleur père que mari ; to be better at être meilleur en [subject, sport] ; to be better at doing faire mieux ; he's no better at driving than she is ou than her il ne conduit pas mieux qu'elle ;7 (more suitable, valid, appropriate) [tune, tool, way, word, idea, example, reason, excuse, choice] meilleur ; to be better for être meilleur pour [purpose, task] ; to be better for doing être mieux pour faire ; to be better than nothing être mieux que rien ; better a part-time job than no job mieux vaut un travail à mi-temps que pas de travail ; the bigger/sooner the better le plus grand/vite possible ; the faster you work the better plus tu travailles vite, mieux ça vaudra ; the less said about that the better mieux vaut ne pas parler de ça ; who better to play the part? qui mieux pourrait jouer le rôle? ; where/how better to do…? quel meilleur endroit/moyen pour faire…? ;8 ( more beneficial) [exercise, food] meilleur ; swimming is better for you than running nager est meilleur pour la santé que courir ;9 ( more accurate) [description, recollection, view, understanding] meilleur ; in order to get a better look pour mieux voir ; to be a better likeness être plus ressemblant.1 ( more adequately or excellently) mieux ; to fit/behave better than aller/se comporter mieux que ; better made/organized than mieux fait/organisé que ; to think better of sb avoir une meilleure opinion de qn ; better behaved/educated plus sage/cultivé ; to be better tempered/mannered avoir meilleur caractère/de meilleures manières ; to do better (in career, life) réussir mieux ; (in exam, essay) faire mieux ; ( in health) aller mieux ; ‘could do better’ ‘pourrait or peut mieux faire’ ; the better to see/hear pour mieux voir/entendre ; the more she talked, the better I understood plus elle parlait, mieux je comprenais ;2 ( more advisably or appropriately) mieux ; it couldn't have been better timed ça n'aurait pu mieux tomber ; the money would be better spent on il vaudrait mieux dépenser l'argent en ; he is better left alone il vaut mieux le laisser seul ; you would be better advised to do tu serais mieux avisé de faire ; you would do better to do tu ferais mieux de faire ; you had better do, you'd better do ( advising) tu ferais mieux de faire ; ( warning) tu as intérêt à faire ; I'd better go je ferais mieux de m'en aller ; ‘will she come?’-‘she'd better! ou she better ○ !’ ‘est-ce qu'elle viendra?’-‘elle a intérêt!’ ; ‘will it be open?’-‘it had better be! ou it better had be! ou it better be ○ !’ ‘est-ce que ça sera ouvert?’-‘il y a intérêt!’ ; ‘more cake?’-‘I'd better not’ ‘encore du gâteau?’-‘non merci’ ; ‘shall I come?’-‘better not’ ‘est-ce que je viens?’-‘il vaut mieux pas’ ; better still,… ou mieux,…D vtr1 ( surpass) améliorer [score, one's performance, achievement] ; faire mieux que [rival's performance, achievement] ; to better sb's offer offrir un meilleur prix que qn ;2 ( improve) améliorer [condition, quality].for better (or) for worse gen advienne que pourra ; ( in wedding vow) pour le meilleur et pour le pire ; to get the better of [person] triompher de, vaincre [enemy, opponent, problem] ; his curiosity got the better of him sa curiosité a pris le dessus ; the problem got the better of her le problème l'a dépassée ; to go one better faire encore mieux (than que) ; to think better of it changer d'avis.
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