🚬 French Smoking Vocabulary & Expressions

Tu veux te tirer une sèche ? Learn the French smoking vocabulary and about smoking in France. I’ll also explain three dumbfounding smoking expressions.

1 – Smoking in France

The French smoke a lot. It’s been changing a bit lately, but still, smoking in France is a real nuisance.

Smoking is allowed in the streets of France, and most of the time on the patio of French restaurants, bars… So, think twice about seating “en terrace” if you are a non-smoker. It’s the smokers’ territory and they do feel entitled to smoke there.

If someone smokes and it bothers you, you may try to say:
Excusez-moi: est-ce que vous auriez la gentillesse de ne pas fumer. Ça me dérange beaucoup / je suis allergique à la fumée.
Sorry, would you be kind enough as not to smoke. It bothers me a lot / I’m allergic to smoke.

Good luck to you though, since this is not customary in France…

And if you are a polite smoker, you may ask:
Est-ce que ça vous dérange si je fume ?
Do you mind if I smoke?

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2 – 40 French Smoking Terms

Here is a list of French smoking words with English translation.

1. le tabac (c silent) – tobacco
2. le tabagisme – fancy formal word to talk about smoking… In the news, you’ll find sentences like “les problèmes du tabagisme en France”…
3. un fumeur / une fumeuse – a smoker.
   This adjective can be used in the feminine to describe a woman who smokes but for some reason I would rather say “elle fume” than “elle est fumeuse” which sounds really weird to my French ear.
4. un non-fumeur – a non-smoker
5. une cigarette – cigarette
6. une blonde – light tobacco cigarette
7. une brune – strong tobacco cigarette
8. une menthol – menthol cigarettes – banned in France since 2020
9. un/e clope – cigarette, familiar: ciggy, smoke (used both in the masculine and the feminine)
10. une sèche – cigarette, familiar: ciggy, smoke
11. une cibiche – cigarette, familiar: ciggy, smoke
12. avec ou sans filtre – with or without filter
13. un paquet de cigarette – pack
14. le tabac à rouler – rolling tobacco
15. du papier à rouler – rolling paper
16. Du gris – cheap pipe and rolling tobacco
17. la nicotine – nicotine
18. un patch – a patch
19. une cigarette éléctronique – e-cigarette
20. vapoter – to smoke an e-cigarette
21. un vapoteur / une vapoteuse – person who smokes e-cigarettes
22. un cigar – cigar
23. un cigarillo – smaller kind of cigar
24. une pipe – smoking pipe
25. un joint – joint
26. rouler un joint – to roll a joint
27. la marijuana, la marijane – marijuana
28. un bong, une pipe à eau – water bong
29. un briquet – lighter
30. une allumette – match
31. une blague à tabac – tobacco pouch (une blague is also a joke in French)
32. un cendrier – ashtray
33. un mégot – butt
34. la cendre – ash
35. la fumée – smoke
36. fumer – to smoke (verb)
37. se griller une clope – to smoke, familiar
38. crapoter – to smoke without inhaling fully the smoke
39. une taffe – a puff
40. la zone fumeur – smoking section
41. la zone non-fumeur – non-smoking section
42. un bar-tabac = where you can buy tobacco. It’s usually part of a bar and has a large sign that says “tabac”.
43. un/une buraliste – someone who works in a “bar-tabac”

3 – French Smoking Expressions

1. Casser sa pipe – Lit. to break one’s smoking pipe. Meaning to die.
2. Fumer comme un pompier – Lit. to smoke like a fireman. Meaning to smoke a lot.
3. Fumer la moquette – Lit. to smoke the carpet. Meaning to smoke a joint and therefore to be a bit out of it.

Watch out with the word “une pipe” in French which in slang has a very strong sexual meaning.

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