15 Misused French Terms in the English Language – Part 1

You have probably heard of cognates before. Some words in French look and mean the same in English; these are called true cognates or vrais amis (true friends). While some words may look the same in French and English, but are not really similar. These are false cognates or faux amis (false friends). However, we won’t be talking about cognates. Those are topics for another day. What we’ll be digging into now are the French words and expressions that are still considered “French” by English speakers, but actually have different or no meaning and cannot be recognized as such by native French speakers. Some of these words are quite popular and used by English speakers in daily speech, while some are being used as a result of pop culture references. Ready to find out about these and if you have been using these words? Here we go. 1. Accoutrement