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WORD OF DAY

French word of the day: Crève-coeur

A eloquent expression of sadness has a distinctly grisly origin.

Published: 14 October 2020 14:45 CEST
French word of the day: Crève-coeur
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Why do I need to know crève-cœur ?

Because French people do not only use the word cœur to be romantic.

What does it mean ?

The word is composed of the verb crever, which means to break and cœur, meaning heart.

So a crève-cœur is something that gives you a lot of pain, something that breaks your heart.

The expression is also associated with regrets, when you lose something very important to you for example.

Even though the heart is very symbolic for love and compassion, the expression originally  refers to butchery, as hearts usually bleed the most (apparently).

Use it like this

Voir son café fermer à cause de la pandémie est un véritable crève-cœur pour le propriétaire – Having to close his café because of the pandemic is heartbreaking for the owner.

Elle a dû vendre la maison de ses parents, ça a été un crève-cœur – She had to sell her parents’ house, it was a a real heartache.

Synonyms

Désarroi – Distress

Chagrin – Sorrow

Affliction – Affliction

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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the Day: Jours ouvrés

You'll need to check the calendar carefully when you see this.

Published: 17 May 2024 12:36 CEST
French word of the Day: Jours ouvrés

Why do I need to know jours ouvrés?

Because you need an accurate time estimate.

What does it mean?

As most French learners will know, jours means days, while in this context ouvrés means ‘working’. Therefore jours ouvrés – roughly pronounced jzoor-ouv-ray – means ‘working days’. You may also see jours ouvrables, which means the same thing.

You’re most likely to come across this in the context of estimates on how long things will take – for example a delivery or the processing of an official task or perhaps the results for a test or exam.

And this is where the calendar comes in – ‘working days’ doesn’t include the weekends, but also excluded are public holidays, of which France has quite a lot. So an estimate for livraison dans les cinq jours ouvrés – might actually take almost two weeks to reach you, if there are weekend days and public holidays in between.

Days on either side of public holidays (known as ‘pont‘ days) are technically working days, but don’t be too surprised if things don’t happen on these days either. 

Although ouvrés looks similar to ouvrir (to open) the root of the work is actually ouvrer – an archaic verb meaning to work or to labour.

This word was gradually supplanted by travailler in around the 16th century, but some derivatives of it are still used – most commonly ouvrier (or ouvrière for women) which means a worker – it can be used for all types of salaried workers, but is more commonly used for people who do manual labour or work with their hands. 

It’s often used in a political sense too – one of France’s leftist political parties is Lutte ouvrière, which translates as Worker’s struggle. 

Use it like this

La livraison est estimée à trois jours ouvrés – Delivery is estimated within three working days

Les résultats seront communiqués sous 48 hours (jours ouvrés) – the results will be sent within 48 hours (on working days)

Not to be confused with 

If you want to talk about ‘open days’ – days when institutions including schools, the military or artists workshops open up to the public – in France these are known as portes ouvertes (literally ‘open doors’).

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