‘Fat’ et ‘faux amis/false friends’

I was tickled this morning to read that the French translation for ‘priggish’ is (pharisaïque, suffisant) fat : ”fat’ : a  ‘false friend’ that would be gras(se) in French. But the best bit was that after ‘fat’ my Collins-Robert dictionary had added (m only) e.g. masculine only. Mmmm… If you don’t believe me look it up on page 1696.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember ever reading ‘fate’ to describe a priggish woman. French ‘fate’ would be another ‘false friend’ translating as ‘le sort’. In turn ‘the sort’ translates broadly as ‘le genre’.

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