It’s time to expand your French vocabulary – welcome to our word of the week blog! Today, we’re looking at the word fond.
First of all, listen to its pronunciation in the audio clip below. While you might have already recognised fond as a word we also use in English, it does sounds very different to the ear:
Not only does it sound different, but it also has a completely different meaning to the English word ‘fond’, which we use to describe something that we like or have feelings of affection towards. This is an example of a ‘false friend’. To French speakers, fond means ‘bottom’, ‘end’, ‘depths’, or ‘back (of)’.
As a masculine noun, fond often follows the definite article le, and more commonly the contraction au. Don’t forget that you can use articles to work out a noun gender.
Let’s take a look at some phrases and examples of fond in action:
au fond de at the bottom of; at the back of; at the end of
Nous avions peur d’ouvrir les yeux au fond du lac. We used to be scared of opening our eyes at the bottom of the lake.
Elle s’assoie toujours au fond de la salle. She always sits at the back of the room.
Son bureau se trouve au fond du couloir à gauche. His office is at the end of the corridor on the left.
à fond throughly; fully; properly; entirely; to the maximum
respirer à fond to take a deep breath
étudier quelque chose à fond to study every detail about something
sans fond bottomless
fond de bière / de vin dregs (of beer / wine)
ski (m) de fond cross-country skiing
aller au fond des choses to get to the bottom of things
cent mètres de fond a depth of a hundred metres / a hundred metres deep
C’est une peinture d’un cheval blanc sur fond noir. It’s a painting of a white horse on a black background.
You might have noticed that we didn’t give any examples in the plural form. Normally, you make a noun plural by adding -s to make fonds, but in this case, the word takes on a totally new definition as a masculine plural:
fonds funds; funding
fonds propres shareholder’s equity
On aura besoin des fonds supplémentaires. We will need additional funds.
Est-ce qu’elle cherche toujours des fonds pour monter son association caritative ? Is she still looking for funding to launch her charity?
After getting used to using fond in all its noun forms, there is one further complication… You might encounter a situation where it appears as a verb. Fond is the third person present indicative conjugation of the verb fondre.
fondre to melt; to dissolve
As it has pretty much no connection to the meaning of the noun, it might be tricky to remember this! Here are some examples in context to help illustrate:
On fond du sucre dans de l’eau pour faire un sirop. We are dissolving sugar in water to make a syrup.
La neige fond au soleil aujourd’hui. The snow is melting in the sun today.
We hope that you enjoyed learning all about fond in this blog. We’ll be here every Monday to share a French word to boost your vocabulary – don’t let this weekly task fall to the bottom of your list!
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.
