Welcome back to our French Word of the Week blog, where it’s time to learn a new word to add to your vocabulary. Today we’re looking at dessous.
We’ll soon get into its meaning and uses, but you can first take a listen to its pronunciation in the audio clip below:
We can translate dessous in lots of different ways, but it generally means ‘underneath’. It can also mean ‘under’, the ‘underside’ and ‘below’, in lots of different contexts and in various grammatical functions. You might come across dessous as an adverb or preposition, but it’s mainly used as a noun.
Let’s look at some examples of this word in action. Bear in mind that when it’s used as a masculine noun, you might see it preceded by articles such as le, un, du or au. However, dessous is often found alongside other prepositions, like you’ll see in our examples:
en dessous underneath; below
Tu peux trouver les chaises en dessous de la table. You can find the chairs under the table.
là-dessous under there
Je croyais que j’avais perdu mon chat, mais elle se cachait là-dessous. I thought I had lost my cat, but she was hiding under there.
ci-dessous below
Remplissez les informations ci-dessous. Fill in the information below.
par-dessous underneath; under
La porte est si petite que mon frère ne peut pas passer par-dessous. The door is so small that my brother can’t get through underneath it.
au-dessous de zéro below zero; freezing
dessous-de-bras underarm; armpit
Nous nous entendons bien avec les voisins du dessous. We get on well with the downstairs neighbours.
Il vaut bien examiner le dessous de l’armoire avant de l’acheter. It’s worth taking a look at the bottom of the wardrobe before buying it.
« Ça coûte combien ? » « Le prix est marqué dessous. » “How much is this?” “The price is marked underneath/on the bottom.”
While this can be tricky to spot sometimes, there’s another change in the word which really alters the meaning in some contexts – the plural. Usually, French nouns add an ‘s’ at the end to become plural, but as dessous already ends in ‘s’, the main way of identifying the plural form is the use of articles like les, des or aux. Be aware that dessous in the plural has a very different translation!
les dessous underwear; undergarments
Je vais mettre mes nouveaux dessous. I’m going to put on my new underwear.
That’s all for this week: we hope that you’ve been able to boost your understanding of French that little bit more. You’ll certainly no longer be at the bottom of the ranks if you keep coming back to learn more every 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.
