French Language Quiz

Answer: From Arabic 'az-zahr' (the die). The word 'hasard' comes from Arabic 'az-zahr', meaning a gaming die. It entered French in the Middle Ages via Spanish 'azar'. Dice games brought by the Crusades and Arab trade popularized this term, which then took on the broader meaning of 'chance' or 'unpredictable event'.

Answer: From Latin 'candidus' (dazzling white). In Rome, those seeking public office wore an immaculate white toga ('toga candida') to signal their moral purity and honesty. The Latin word 'candidus' means 'white, shining'. Hence also the words 'candeur' (naive innocence) and 'candid'.

Answer: From Greek 'ephemeros' (lasting one day). The word 'éphémère' comes from Greek 'ephemeros', composed of 'epi' (on, during) and 'hemera' (day). It literally meant what lasts only one day. Aristotle used it to describe certain short-lived insects. In botany and zoology it is still used for species with brief life cycles. The word 'hemerocallis' (a flower that blooms for only one day) shares the same Greek root.

Answer: Vulgaire (vulgar). 'Vulgaris' means 'common, of the people' in Latin. The word 'vulgaire' first referred to the language spoken by ordinary people, before taking on a pejorative meaning.

Answer: Lasting a short time. From Greek 'ephêmeros' (lasting only one day), composed of 'epi' (on) and 'hêmera' (day).

Answer: Illusoire (illusory). 'Chimérique' means belonging to the imagination or illusion, so 'illusory' is the synonym.

Answer: Feraient. In the conditional present, the 3rd person plural of 'faire' is 'feraient'.

Answer: Tripode (tripod). The tripod is the only one with 3 legs. Three points define a stable plane — which is why you never need to put a wedge under a tripod... unlike a table!

Answer: Redundant repetition of the same idea. A pleonasm consists of using several words that express the same idea, creating redundancy. Famous examples: 'climb up', 'descend down', 'tiny dwarf'. The term comes from Greek 'pleonasmos' (excess, abundance). While some pleonasms are stylistic errors to avoid, others are deliberate and constitute a figure of emphasis.

Answer: Nîmes. Denim owes its name to 'serge de Nîmes', a sturdy fabric produced around the city of Nîmes. Exported to England and then the United States, the phrase was contracted from 'de Nîmes' into 'denim'. The word made a round trip: the French later reborrowed it from English without recognising their own place name.

Answer: From Greek 'boulimia' (ox hunger). The word 'boulimie' comes from Greek 'boulimia', formed from 'bous' (ox) and 'limos' (hunger), literally meaning a hunger as insatiable as an ox's. This animal metaphor illustrated the excess of appetite. The term has been used in medicine since the 19th century to denote an eating disorder.

Answer: Cook. In the Middle Ages, 'coquin' came from 'coc' (rooster/cook in Old French) and referred to a kitchen boy or lowly cook. Low-ranking cooks had a reputation for stealing leftovers and being swindlers, which caused the word to shift to meaning 'rascal, scoundrel'. Today the word has softened further to mean someone mischievous or slightly naughty.

Answer: Without wax (unaltered marble). The most likely etymology of 'sincere' is Latin 'sine cera' (without wax). Dishonest marble merchants would fill cracks in their stone with wax to pass it off as perfect. A marble 'sine cera' was therefore authentic, unaltered. Hence the meaning 'genuine, honest, without artifice'. Another possible etymology is 'semel' (once) + 'cernere' (to separate, distinguish).

Answer: One who masters horses. The name 'Hippocrate' (Hippokrates in Greek) is composed of 'hippos' (horse) and 'kratos' (power, mastery). It means 'one who masters horses' — a common aristocratic name in ancient Greece where horse ownership signaled nobility. It is a personal name, not a medical title! Hippocrates (460–370 BC) is considered the father of Western medicine.

Answer: A happy, unexpected discovery. Term invented by Horace Walpole in 1754, inspired by a Persian tale where the heroes make discoveries by chance.

Answer: Maxima. The plural of 'maximum' is 'maxima', a word of Latin origin.

Answer: Verbosité (verbosity). Prolixity refers to a tendency to speak or write excessively, so 'verbosity' is the synonym.

Answer: Parabole (parable). Syndeton, asyndeton and anacoluthon concern sentence construction, while a parable is an allegorical narrative.

Answer: Faenza. Faience is a porous-bodied ceramic covered with an opaque tin-based glaze. Its name comes from Faenza, a city in Emilia-Romagna renowned for its workshops from the Renaissance onwards. Pottery imported from the city was so distinctive that the place name came to designate the technique itself, just as 'majolica' comes from Majorca.

Answer: To postpone to a date that will never come. In the Roman calendar, the calends were the first day of each month, when debts fell due. The Greeks, however, had no calends in their calendar. Postponing a payment 'to the Greek calends' therefore meant putting it off to a date that does not exist. Suetonius attributes the phrase to the emperor Augustus.