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Bête – Silly, Stupid

Bête – Silly, Stupid

Today we’ll look at commonly used French word, bête. As an adjective bête means both silly and stupid. As a noun it means animal, creature, beast or insect. Tu es bête! You are silly! Let’s jump right into the lesson!

bête

silly, stupid, creature

Bête = Silly, stupid, animal, beast or insect in French.

Word origin

The Modern French word bête comes from the Old French beste, which in turn come the Latin bestĭa (beast, animal, creature). The word bête is a classic example of where an -e with a circumflex accent (the little hat) replaces an -s in Old French.

Example sentences

For this first example sentence, bête simply means “stupid” or “dumb”.

Sylvie trouve que Martin est très bête.

Sylvie finds that Martin is very stupid.

In this second example, the meaning changes to “silly”. We loosely translated je suis bête” (literally I am silly) to the English expression “silly me”.

Je suis bête : j’ai encore oublié les clés !

Silly me! I forgot my keys again!

As mentioned, bête as a feminine noun translates to beast or animal. The French expression “sale bête” (literally dirty beast) is used to mean “bad” or “annoying” animal. Hence, the translation “bad dog”.

Sale bête ! Descends !

Bad dog! Get down!

In French, the feminine noun bêtise is related to bête and means silly mistake or error. The expression raconter des bêtises means to “talk nonsense”.

Ah zut ! J’ai encore fait la même bêtise.

Oh shoot! I made the same mistake again!

Conclusion

Et voilà ! You know how to use the French word bête. Now check our lesson covering another fun and useful informal French adjective nul/nulle, which translates to “lousy” or “sucks”.

Word of the Day Lessons

As an adjective, bête mean "stupid or "silly" in French. As a noun it can mean "animal".
As an adjective, bête mean “stupid or “silly” in French. As a noun it can mean “animal”.

Lessons by David Issokson

References

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David Issokson
David Issokson is a lifelong language learner and speaks over seven 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 lessons. When not teaching or writing his French Word of the Day lessons, David enjoys his time skiing, hiking and mountain biking in Victor, Idaho.

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David Issokson

David Issokson is a lifelong language learner and speaks over seven 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 lessons. When not teaching or writing his French Word of the Day lessons, David enjoys his time skiing, hiking and mountain biking in Victor, Idaho.

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