A Paris Glossary · French Words Explained

Guides & visits

Carte professionnelle: The professional card a guide-conférencier must hold. Many French trades have a “carte professionnelle”; on this site it always means the guide's card, issued by the French state after the degree and national examinations, and required to guide inside national museums and monuments.
Guide-conférencier: France's professional license for guides, granted after a university degree in art history and heritage. It is required to guide visitors inside national museums and historic monuments.
Nocturne: A late opening: the evening when a museum stays open well after dark, usually until 9 pm or later.
Pépin: A seed, the pip inside a piece of fruit. We chose the name for what we hope a tour leaves behind: a small seed that keeps growing long after the visit. And in Normandy, a pépin is also an umbrella, a handy thing to have in Paris too.

Ancien Régime: “The old order”: France under its kings, before the Revolution of 1789.
Belle Époque: “The beautiful era”: the years from about 1871 to 1914, a time of peace, prosperity and invention in Paris, from the metro to the cinema.
Communards: The supporters of the Paris Commune, the revolutionary government that held the city from March 18 to May 28, 1871.
Grands Appartements: The State Apartments of Versailles: the ceremonial rooms of the king and queen, with the Hall of Mirrors.
Hameau de la Reine: “The Queen's Hamlet”: a make-believe farm village built for Marie-Antoinette in the gardens of Trianon in the 1780s.
Mur des Fédérés: The wall in Père-Lachaise cemetery where the last Communards were shot on May 28, 1871. A place of remembrance ever since.
Petits Appartements: The king's private rooms at Versailles, behind the State Apartments, where the court's daily life actually happened. Most open only for guided visits.
Salle des Gens d'Armes: “The hall of the men-at-arms”: the great Gothic hall of the Conciergerie, built under Philip the Fair in the early fourteenth century for the royal household.

Arrondissement: One of the twenty districts of Paris, numbered from 1 in the center and spiraling outwards to 20. Postcodes follow them: 75018 is the 18th.
Bouquinistes: The second-hand booksellers whose green boxes line the quays of the Seine, a Paris fixture for more than four centuries.
Château: A castle, but also a palace or a grand country house: Versailles, Vincennes and Fontainebleau are all châteaux.
Guinguette: An open-air tavern on the edge of the city, where Parisians went on Sundays to drink cheap wine and dance.
Hôtel particulier: A grand private townhouse, built around a courtyard for an aristocratic or wealthy family. Despite the name, not a hotel. The Marais has dozens.
Île-de-France: The region around Paris: the city and the countryside that surrounds it, with Versailles, Fontainebleau, Saint-Denis and Auvers-sur-Oise.
La Butte: “The mound”: what Parisians call the hill of Montmartre, the highest natural point in the city, about 130 meters (430 feet) above sea level.
RER: The regional express trains that cross Paris and run out to Versailles, Saint-Denis and the airports. A metro ticket is not always enough.

Art nouveau: The style of around 1890 to 1910, all curving lines borrowed from plants and flowers. In Paris: Guimard's metro entrances and the Castel Béranger.
Nymphéas: “Water lilies”: Monet's great series painted from his pond at Giverny. The largest panels fill two oval rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie.
Parterre: A formal garden of low flowerbeds and clipped hedges laid out in patterns, made to be admired from the windows above.

Boulangerie: A bakery. In France the name is protected: a boulangerie must knead, shape and bake its bread on the premises.
Cave à vin: A wine shop, often with a few tables where you can taste by the glass, with cheese or charcuterie.
Fromager: A cheesemonger: the person who chooses, ages and sells the cheese, and will tell you which one to eat tonight.
Fromagerie: A cheese shop, often with its own cellar where the cheeses are aged until they are ready.
Goûter: The four o'clock snack every French child knows: a pastry, bread and chocolate, a slice of cake. Few adults ever really give it up.
Marché: A food market, in the open air or under a covered hall. Most Paris neighborhoods have one two or three mornings a week.
Terroir: What a place gives to what grows there: its soil, its climate and the know-how of the people who farm it.

Code de la consommation: The French consumer code: the law that protects customers, on prices, contracts and cancellations.
Code général des impôts: The French general tax code.
Entrepreneur individuel (EI): A sole trader: a business run in its owner's own name, without a separate company.
EURL: A limited company with a single owner.
Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés (RCS): The French register of trading businesses and companies.
Répertoire des Métiers (RM): The French register of craft businesses.
TVA: The French name for VAT, value added tax: the equivalent of sales tax in the United States.