Skip to Content

French Basketball Vocabulary

French Basketball Vocabulary

Lexique pour le basket-ball

On this page you’ll find a list of French basketball vocabulary including equipment names, parts of the court and useful verbs. While basketball is in American sport it is also very popular in France. In France the game has been played for over 100 years and is administered by the Fédération française de basket-ball (French Federation of Basketball) and is played under the Ligue nationale de basket-ball (National Basketball League.

Image: basketball
  • le panier basket
  • le filet net
  • l’anneau hoop
  • le ballon ball
  • le panneau backboard
  • le numéro number
  • la ligne de trois points 3-point line
  • la ligne de centre center line
  • le terrain court
  • la ligne de bout endline
  • la ligne de lancer franc free-throw line
  • le cercle central center circle
  • l’arbitre referee
  • la ligne de touche sideline
  • lancer to throw
  • attrapper to catch
  • tirer to shoot sauter to jump
  • marquer to mark
  • bloquer to block
  • faire rebondir to bounce/dribble
  • faire un dunk to dunk the ball
  • la passe pass
  • la rentrée throw-in
  • la faute foul
  • l’entre-deux jump ball
  • le rebond rebound
  • hors jeux out of bounds
  • le joueur player
  • le basket basket ball
Related lessons:
Discover more:

Sharing is caring!

Affiliate disclosure: Below you will find affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking the link, we will receive a small commission. To learn more please visit our full disclosure page. Merci!

Sign up to download your free trial of À Moi Paris a French course which I recommend to my personal students to help with pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. After that, upgrade for access to 77 hours of audio lessons.

Read our full review of À Moi Paris and find out why we love it so much!

Are you struggling with French verb conjugations? Then we highly recommend French Today's French Verb Drills course. Get over 28 hours of audio exercises to build reflexes and dramatically improve your French level and confidence.

Read our full review of French Verb Drills and find out why we recommend this course!

David Issokson

David Issokson is a lifelong language enthusiast. His head is swimming with words and sounds as he speaks over six languages. Of all the languages he speaks, he's the most passionate about French! David has helped hundreds of students to improve their French in his private online lessons. When procrastinating working on his site, FrenchLearner.com, David enjoys his time skiing and hiking in Teton Valley, Idaho.

See all posts by