Level C1 Advanced
The French word of the day is le seuil (C1), literally meaning ‘threshold’ or ‘doorstep’ as in the piece of wood, stone or tile which forms the bottom of a doorway. The figurative meaning of seuil is ‘threshold’, ‘limit’ and ‘brink’ as in le seuil de pauvreté (poverty line).
le seuil – IPA pronunciation /sœj/
Word origin
The Modern French word seuil comes from solea (sandal, slipper) in Latin.
Le seuil example sentences
Julie a placé ses chaussures au seuil de la porte avant d’entrer la maison.
Julie placed her shoes at the doorstep before entering the house.
Plus de cinquante pourcent de la population vit en dessous du seuil de pauvreté.
More than 50% of the population lives below the poverty line.
This sentence uses the verb vivre which means ‘to live’, ‘to experience’ or ‘to go through’ (in life).
Les personnes âgées sont en danger car la chaleur a atteint un seuil critique.
Old people are in danger because the heat reached a critical threshold.
More vocabulary using le seuil & related terms
- Au seuil de At the brink of
- Franchir le seuil To cross the threshold
- Dépasser un seuil To exceed a threshold
- Atteindre un seuil To reach a threshold
- Le seuil de rentabilité Break-even point
- Le seuil de douleur Pain threshold
- Le seuil de tolérance Tolerance threshold
- La limite Limit
- L’entrée: Entrance
- L’orée: Edge, border
Continue learning French!
Now that you’ve mastered le seuil, check our our lesson covering another advanced (C1) vocabulary word l’ampleur, meaning scale and size.
