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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the Day: Bite

It has one meaning in English, but a very different - and definitely NSFW - meaning in French. (Contains explicit language).

Published: 14 September 2021 12:27 CEST

French word of the Day: Bite

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Why do I need to know bite?

Because if you’re going to mix English and French you need to be sure you’re not unintentionally saying something very rude.

What does it mean?

Une bite in French is a slang term for penis, similar to ‘cock’ or ‘dick’ in English and it’s pronounced ‘beet’.

It’s widely used in casual French among friends but very definitely isn’t something that you would say in front of your boss, your French mother-in-law or any passing nuns.

Unlike its English equivalents, it’s not really used as an insult, so you wouldn’t call someone une bite, it’s used specifically to refer to the male body part.

The same spelling as the English verb bite (mordre in French) makes this word a bit of a minefield, as for example at Marks & Spencer’s Paris branches, where all products are sold untranslated, so that this box of sweet treats would be read in French as ‘millionaire’s little pricks’.

(Although if for any reason you ever wanted to say that in French, the correct expression would be les petites bites du millionnaire).

Or the below infamous advert for a range of frozen snacks, where the attempt to introduce an air of sophistication by using a random French word results in an advert that says ‘little cocks, big compliments’.

Use it like this

La sex tape du politicien nous a appris une chose : il a une très grosse bite – One thing we learned from the politician’s sex tape; he has a really big penis.

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8 favourite French Words of the Day

Every weekday The Local publishes a French word or phrase of the day. We try to focus on colloquialisms, slang, sayings (and a bit of swearing) – you know, the type of French you won’t learn in the classroom, but will hear all the time in the street.

This daily habit means we have a very extensive back catalogue – find it here – and we’ve picked out eight of our recent favourites.

Taxe lapin

The literal translation of une taxe lapin – oon-tax la-pahn – is exactly what you would expect – ‘rabbit tax’.

However, this is not a tax on rabbits, or even on rabbit owners. It is in fact a ‘no-show fee’ or charge levied on people who make appointments and don’t turn up.

Fortunately, we showed up with an explanation, here.

Banco

Banco – bain-koh – is essentially the French word for “bingo!”. It might be colloquial, but politicians have been known to use it when indicating that something someone else has said is correct.

There’s more, right here.

Radin

Radin – rah-dahn – is a less-than complimentary French term for a penny-pincher, someone who is or ‘miserly’ with their money.

We, however, are not in the least stingy with our definition.

Crevard

Speaking of words that definitely aren’t complimentary… Crevard – creh-varr – is a colloquial term that can be used to describe someone who looks ill or exhausted. It’s roughly equivalent to telling someone that they ‘look like death warmed up’.

Find out more, here.

À peine

À peine – ah pen – means ‘with or to pain’ or ‘with or to effort’, and therefore makes no sense in English. But in French conversation, it acts as an adverb meaning ‘hardly’, ‘barely’ or ‘scarcely’.

We make sense of it all, here.

T’as dead ça

T’as dead ça – tah dead sah – combines the French verb avoir (to have) with the English word ‘dead’. And it’s a good thing, apparently. Because it refers to ‘killing it’ in the positive sense. If you tell someone t’as dead ça, it’s congratulatory, like ‘great job, you killed it!’

Simple comme bonjour

Simple comme bonjour – sahm-pluh com bohn-jor – translates as ‘simple as hello’.

It describes something that is very easy or quick, the French equivalent to ‘easy as ABC’, or ‘a piece of cake’.

Our explainer is just as straightforward, too.

J’en ai marre

J’en ai marre – roughly pronounced Johnny Marr – means ‘I’m fed up’.

We discuss this charming phrase in more depth here.

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