In this week’s blog for French learners, we’re going to look at the word bout, a masculine noun in French.
To get started, listen to the audio clip to hear how to pronounce it correctly:
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The main English translations of bout are end, bottom, tip, or piece/bit. It’s also worth knowing how to form the plural of the word, which simply takes an -s on the end to make bouts.
The reason that bout is our word of the week is because of how much it’s used in set phrases and expressions in French. While its basic meaning seems pretty straightforward, you’re likely to hear it used in a lot of different contexts. Let’s get into some examples:
jusqu’au bout to the (very) end
au bout de at the end of
tirer à bout portant to shoot at point blank range
de bout en bout from one end to the other (end)
le bout du nez tip of the nose
du bout des lèvres reluctantly; begrudgingly (literally, at the end of one’s lips)
au bout du compte when all’s said and done; at the end of the day
être à bout to be exhausted
être à bout de souffle to beout of breath; to be on your way out/on your last breath (this is used both figuratively and literally)
Il faut qu’on finisse ce projet. On ira jusqu’au bout ! We need to finish this project. We’ll see it all the way through to the end!
Je ne connais personne qui habite au bout de notre rue. I don’t know anyone who lives at the end of our street.
Tu peux me donner un bout de pain, s’il te plaît ? Can you give me a bit of bread please?
We always like to give you the full picture in our French word of the week blogs, so be aware that there is one situation where you might see bout used as a verb rather than a noun: bout is also the present tense, 3rd person singular form of the verb bouillir, which means to boil.
Depuis que j’ai acheté une nouvelle bouilloire, l’eau bout beaucoup plus rapidement. Ever since I bought a new kettle, the water boils a lot quicker.
Mon oncle bout de colère à cause du résultat du match. My uncle is seething because of the match results. (literally ‘boiling with anger’)
For more about irregular verbs, you can take a look at the verb table for bouillir and our Easy Learning French Grammar page on the present tense of irregular verbs.
At the end of our weekly blog, we always like to sign off by saying thanks for reading! We hope to see you again next week.
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
