Body parts vocabulary in French is one of those lists that every learner needs eventually. It comes up in health contexts, in physical descriptions, in reflexive verbs like se laver (to wash oneself), and in dozens of everyday expressions. It is also one of the areas where French handles grammar slightly differently from English, in a way that trips up even intermediate learners.
This post covers the vocabulary itself, a brief grammar note that makes the whole category easier to use correctly, and a set of phrases for describing pain and symptoms.
The Head and Face
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| la tête | the head |
| le visage, la figure | the face |
| le front | the forehead |
| l’oeil (m.) / les yeux | the eye / the eyes |
| le sourcil | the eyebrow |
| le cil | the eyelash |
| la paupière | the eyelid |
| le nez | the nose |
| la joue | the cheek |
| la bouche | the mouth |
| la lèvre | the lip |
| la dent | the tooth |
| la langue | the tongue |
| le menton | the chin |
| l’oreille (f.) | the ear |
| le cou | the neck |
| la gorge | the throat |
| les cheveux (m.) | the hair (always plural in French) |
A note on cheveux: in English, “hair” is a singular mass noun. In French, les cheveux is always plural. You would not say un cheveu to mean “hair”, because that means a single strand. This trips up a lot of learners when using adjectives: les cheveux noirs (“black hair”), les cheveux courts (“short hair”).
L’oeil has a completely irregular plural: les yeux. There is no pattern to follow here; it just has to be memorized.
The Torso
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| le corps | the body |
| l’épaule (f.) | the shoulder |
| la poitrine | the chest |
| le dos | the back |
| le ventre | the stomach, the belly |
| l’estomac (m.) | the stomach (the organ specifically) |
| la hanche | the hip |
| le coeur | the heart |
| le poumon | the lung |
| le foie | the liver |
| le rein | the kidney |
| la colonne vertébrale | the spine |
| le cerveau | the brain |
| la peau | the skin |
| l’os (m.) | the bone |
| le sang | the blood |
A note on ventre versus estomac: in everyday speech, le ventre is what French people use to refer to the stomach area generally (“I have a stomach ache” is almost always j’ai mal au ventre). L’estomac refers specifically to the digestive organ and is more clinical in actual usage.
The Arms and Hands
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| le bras | the arm |
| le coude | the elbow |
| le poignet | the wrist |
| la main | the hand |
| le doigt | the finger |
| le pouce | the thumb |
| l’ongle (m.) | the nail (finger or toe) |
The Legs and Feet
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| la jambe | the leg |
| la cuisse | the thigh |
| le genou | the knee |
| la cheville | the ankle |
| le pied | the foot |
| l’orteil (m.) | the toe |
| le talon | the heel |
Le genou has an irregular plural: les genoux. This is part of a small group of nouns ending in -ou that take -x in the plural rather than the standard -s.
A Grammar Note: Definite Articles With Body Parts
This is one of the trickier aspects of body parts in French, and worth understanding clearly.
In English, we use possessive adjectives with body parts: “she washed her face,” “he broke his arm,” “she cut her finger.” In French, when a body part is the object of a verb (as is extremely common with French reflexive verbs) and there is already a pronoun in the sentence that identifies whose body part it is, French uses the definite article (le, la, les) instead of a possessive adjective.
Elle lui lave le visage. (“She is washing his face.”)
Ils lui ont cassé le bras. (“They broke his arm.”)
Elle s’était coupé le doigt. (“She had cut her finger.”)
In each case, the lui or the reflexive pronoun (s’) already tells you whose body it is. Adding a possessive adjective would be redundant in French. The definite article does the job instead.
However, when the body part is the subject of a sentence and there is no pronoun to identify the owner, the possessive adjective is used normally, just as in English:
Mon coeur s’est arrêté un instant. (“My heart stopped for an instant.”)
Ma tête me fait mal. (“My head hurts.”)
The distinction is whether the body part is subject or object, and whether a pronoun is already doing the ownership work.
Describing Pain and Symptoms
The most practical phrase for talking about pain in French is avoir mal à plus the definite article. This construction uses the contraction au before masculine nouns and aux before plural nouns.
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| J’ai mal à la tête. | I have a headache. |
| J’ai mal au ventre. | I have a stomach ache. |
| J’ai mal au dos. | My back hurts. |
| J’ai mal aux pieds. | My feet hurt. |
| J’ai mal à la gorge. | I have a sore throat. |
| J’ai mal aux dents. | My teeth hurt. / I have a toothache. |
A second construction, faire mal à, works slightly differently. It uses an indirect object pronoun to say who is hurting:
Mes pieds me font mal. (“My feet are hurting me.”)
Son genou lui fait mal depuis une semaine. (“His knee has been hurting him for a week.”)
Both constructions are correct and common. Avoir mal à is typically used when you are describing your own pain. Faire mal à is more flexible and works for talking about someone else’s pain as well.
Common Symptoms
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| une douleur | a pain |
| une blessure | a wound, an injury |
| une fracture | a broken bone |
| une foulure | a sprain |
| une enflure | swelling |
| une brûlure | a burn |
| une contusion | a bruise |
| de la fièvre | a fever |
| des frissons (m.) | chills |
| une toux | a cough |
| une migraine | a migraine |
| se casser | to break (a bone): se casser le bras |
| se blesser | to injure oneself |
| saigner | to bleed |
| tousser | to cough |
Elle s’est cassé la cheville en descendant l’escalier. (“She broke her ankle coming down the stairs.”)
Il a une forte fièvre depuis hier soir. Il faut appeler le médecin. (“He has had a high fever since last night. We need to call the doctor.”)
The vocabulary in this post will get you through most basic health conversations in French. For anything more complex, like describing symptoms in detail, understanding a doctor’s instructions, or navigating a French pharmacy, the best preparation is actually practicing those conversations in advance. A session or two with a native French speaker on a platform like italki is one of the most practical ways to build that specific confidence before you need it.
