Thanks for joining us again for yet another French word of the week! This Monday, we’re going to tell you all the finer details of the word nom.
It might look small and simple, but there’s plenty to uncover. To begin, we recommend listening to its pronunciation by using the audio clip below:
As we move on to the meanings of this word, it’s not too dissimilar in spelling from its main English translation. Nom means ‘name’ in English, in several senses. You can use nom to talk about first names, surnames and also for naming things. Now, please bear in mind that it has no relation to the English use of ‘nom’ to exclaim how delicious and tasty you find certain foods… But if you must know, the nearest French equivalent to this would be miam miam!
In terms of grammar, nom is a masculine noun, which you might see alongside articles such as un or le. However, the even more interesting thing about nom being a noun, is that another of its translations is indeed ‘noun’ – how very apt!
Now we can look at some examples of nom in different contexts, from names to nouns, and more:
nom d’utiliseur username
nom (de famille) surname
nom de code codename
nomde jeune fille maiden name
se faire un nom to make a name for yourself
Quel est le nom de cette montagne ? What’s the name of this mountain?
Il/Elle est un grand nom de… He/She is a big name in… (here you can add the area of expertise in which this person is well known)
Alasdair Gray est un grand nom de l’art écossais. Alasdair Gray is a big name in Scottish art.
nom propre proper noun
‘Situation’ est un nom féminin. ‘Situation’ is a feminine noun.
‘Arbre’ est un nom masculin. ‘Tree’ is a masculine noun.
While you’re here, it’s also worth knowing about the related verb:
nommer to name
Nous avons nommé notre maison à la campagne ‘Le Mas de la Rose’. We named our house in the country ‘Rose Farmhouse’.
And this applies to its past participle adjective, too. For example:
nommé(e) named; designated; nominated
personne nommée nominated person
Je crois que sa professeur est nommée Madame Dupoint. I think his teacher is named Mrs Dupoint.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed learning about nom in this week’s blog. Come back next time to find out all the details of another verb, adjective or perhaps a new noun!
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
