Pavement et chauffeur

Le pavement:

I am always happily surprised when I discover a new ‘false friend’, and this, I think, is a good one. ‘Le pavement’ is ‘ornamental tiling’, and the English ‘pavement’ is ‘le trottoir’. Simples. 

Un chauffeur:

I was also surprised to discover today that, although ‘un chauffeur’ is a driver, ‘une chauffeuse’, according to my Collins-Robert dictionary, is ‘a low armless chair, a unit chair (whatever that may be)’. And not, apparently, a female driver or anything to do with heating (from ‘chauffer’  : ‘to heat’). Incidentally, ‘a boiler’ is ‘une chaudière’.

 

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