Body parts in French: name them and say what hurts

Body parts in French are easy to list and easy to get wrong in a sentence. This page gives the main words with their gender, the plurals that break the rules, the article rule for your own body, and the phrases for pain. For how gender and articles work in general, read French articles and gender. For everyday words, see Basic French words. For describing hair and eyes, Good in French covers adjectives, and Blue in French covers colours.

Sources for the words: the Académie française, Dictionnaire, 9th edition, pages with no date shown.

What are the body parts in French?

The body parts in French, les parties du corps [15], are nouns with a fixed gender. Learn each with its article: la tête, not tête.

Every gender below comes from the Académie française entry for the word.

The word for the body itself is le corps, masculine; the final p and s are silent [15]. Face is le visage [6], and a person’s head is la tête [5].

There is no tidy pattern. La main is feminine and le bras, next to it on the body, is masculine [3][11]. Memorize the article with the noun.

How do you say eye and eyes in French?

Eye in French is un œil, and eyes in French is des yeux [1]. In the French language the eye is masculine, and the Académie française gives the plural as yeux, except in some specialised senses and compound nouns [1].

The same entry gives globe oculaire as another way to say eyeball [1]. The plural shows up in everyday phrases: des yeux bleus, avoir les yeux gonflés, rouges [1]. For the colour words, see Blue in French.

How do you say hair in French?

Hair in French is les cheveux when you mean the hair on your head [2]. The Académie française defines cheveu as a hair that grows on the human scalp, and its examples are in the plural: cheveux blonds, bruns, noirs, avoir les cheveux bouclés [2]. The singular names one hair or, in a collective sense, hair as a whole: avoir le cheveu fin [2].

Hair with a verb follows the article rule in the next section: se brosser, se laver les cheveux [2].

Why do you say je me lave les mains, not mes mains?

With a reflexive verb such as se laver, French uses the article, not the possessive. The Académie française lists se laver, s’essuyer les mains and se brosser, se laver les cheveux [2][3]. The pronoun me already says whose hands or hair they are.

The same entry also gives mettre ses mains dans ses poches, with the possessive [3].

How do you say something hurts in French?

Use avoir mal à and the article of the body part. The Académie française defines avoir mal as feeling pain and gives avoir mal à la tête, à l’estomac [4]. It also gives avoir mal aux cheveux for a headache after too much drink [2][4]. The entry for dent gives avoir mal aux dents [9].

The word à joins the article: à + le becomes au, and à + les becomes aux. À la and à l’ stay as they are.

For the verb avoir itself, see Avoir conjugation.

Which French expressions use body parts?

French has many. Each is a fixed phrase, so learn it whole.

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Common mistakes

• Dropping the article. English says “nose”; French needs le nez. Learn each noun with its article [5][7].
• Writing des œils. The plural of œil is yeux [1].
• Using the singular for hair. On the head it is les cheveux; un cheveu is one hair [2].
• Saying je lave mes mains. Use je me lave les mains [3].
• Forgetting the contraction. À + le is au and à + les is aux: mal aux dents [9].
• Guessing the gender from the English word or the ending. La main is feminine and le bras is masculine [3][11].
• Relying on a word list from a blog, including this one. The dictionary updates its entries. Compare the page’s own date with the date at the top of this one.

See also: clothes in French.

See also: feelings in French.

Sources