French · France · Belgium · Switzerland · Canada
merde
/mɛʁd/
Listen to how locals say it.
Meaning
Shit — both the substance and the standard French exclamation of frustration.Machine-assisted translation
Pronunciation
- IPA
- /mɛʁd/
“maird” — uvular French r.
How it's used
Everyday and comparatively mild. In theatre it is a good-luck wish, the equivalent of “break a leg”.Machine-assisted translation
Cultural context
Wiktionary tags the interjection as vulgar and separately records the theatre sense “break a leg”.Machine-assisted translation
Literal meaning
feces
When to avoid it
Situations where people would rather you did not say it.
- At school — Depends. A teacher will pull you up on it.
- At work — Depends. Common between colleagues, avoided in front of clients.
Sources
Every claim on this page traces back to these entries.
Passages derived from these dictionary entries are redistributed under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.