Jon Henley in Paris, Tue 26 Jul 2022 15.33 BST, Photograph: Tim Green/Atoach/Flickr
Pandemic and climate crisis account for most new entries in authoritative Le Robert and Larousse dictionaries
From covidé (infected with coronavirus) to confinement (lockdown) and éco-anxiété (climate anxiety) to verdissement d’image (greenwashing), the pandemic and the climate crisis account for most new French words, Le Monde has concluded.
But if 28% of recent additions are essentially English, according to an analysis by the paper, nearly half are French coinages, demonstrating what it called the language’s “great suppleness, as well as the creativity and humour of its users”.