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List of French words of Germanic origin (A-B)

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This list of French words of Germanic origin is a dictionary of standard modern French words and phrases deriving from any Germanic language of any period, whether incorporated in the formation of the French language or borrowed at any time thereafter.

Scope of the dictionary

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The following list details words, affixes and phrases that contain Germanic etymons. Words where only an affix is Germanic (e.g. fait, bouillard, carnavalesque) are excluded, as are words borrowed from a Germanic language where the origin is other than Germanic (for instance, cabaret is from Dutch, but the Dutch word is ultimately from Latin/Greek, so it is omitted). Likewise, words which have been calqued from a Germanic tongue (e.g. pardonner, bienvenue, entreprendre, toujours, compagnon, plupart, manuscrit, manoeuvre), or which received their usage or sense (i.e. were created, modified or influenced) due to Germanic speakers or Germanic linguistic habits (e.g. comté, avec, commun, on, panne, avoir, ça) are not included.

Many other Germanic words found in older versions of French, such as Old French and Anglo-French are no longer extant in Standard Modern French. Many of these words do, however, continue to survive dialectally and in English. See: List of English Latinates of Germanic origin.

Dictionary

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A

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Utterance Translation Germanic
Element
Etymology Period References
à la bonne franquette informally franquette Normanno-Picard, from franc, a Germanic word known in French from the 11th century, the same as English frank 17th century CNRTL à la bonne franquette,
CNRTL franc3

B

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See also

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Notes

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References

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  • Auguste Brachet, An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language: Third Edition
  • Auguste Scheler, "Dictionnaire d'étymologie française d'après les résultats de la science moderne" (in French)
  • Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (in French)
  • Dictionary.com
  • Friedrich Diez, "An Etymological Dictionary of the Romance Languages"
  • Dossier des Latinistes, La Greffe Germanique (in French)
  • Thomason, Sarah Grey; Kaufman, Terrence (1991) [1988]. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics (1st pbk. print. ed.). Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07893-2.