French news vocabulary
The 500 most common words in French news writing, with English meanings, everyday words included.
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Words that stand out in news writing
| Word | Meaning | News rank | Speaking rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| politique | politics; policy; political | 75 | 1,310 |
| septembre | September | 82 | 3,378 |
| également | also; equally | 86 | 1,611 |
| notamment | notably; in particular | 91 | 10,856 |
| saint | saint; holy; Saint- (in names) | 98 | 1,928 |
| euros | euros | 113 | 4,383 |
| publié | published; posted | 114 | 5,692 |
| français | French; French people | 115 | 1,475 |
| octobre | October | 116 | 4,013 |
| mars | March | 121 | 2,351 |
| juin | June | 128 | 3,996 |
| mai | May | 130 | 2,991 |
| juillet | July | 134 | 3,714 |
| janvier | January | 139 | 4,812 |
| avril | April | 148 | 3,785 |
| site | site; website | 151 | 1,918 |
| novembre | November | 152 | 4,320 |
| février | February | 160 | 5,475 |
| association | association; non-profit group | 163 | 3,774 |
| décembre | December | 165 | 4,665 |
| région | region | 168 | 2,500 |
| août | August | 169 | 4,636 |
| festival | festival | 174 | 4,213 |
| édition | edition; (event) year | 175 | 5,614 |
| entreprises | companies; businesses | 200 | 5,096 |
| cadre | framework; (dans le cadre de) as part of | 210 | 4,053 |
| territoire | territory | 219 | 2,953 |
| européenne | European (fem.) | 223 | 11,540 |
| mercredi | Wednesday | 225 | 3,100 |
| politiques | political (pl.); policies | 230 | 4,251 |
| développement | development | 242 | 4,783 |
| sociale | social (fem.) | 252 | 3,460 |
| social | social | 266 | 4,891 |
| économique | economic | 278 | 6,702 |
| française | French (fem.) | 285 | 4,185 |
| commune | municipality; commune | 288 | 5,659 |
| communes | municipalities; communes | 311 | 14,632 |
| création | creation; setting up | 314 | 4,554 |
| sociaux | social (masc. pl.) | 326 | 4,930 |
| gestion | management | 331 | 6,421 |
| unis | united (masc. pl.) | 371 | 4,909 |
| élus | elected officials | 373 | 11,112 |
| patrimoine | heritage; assets | 408 | 13,077 |
| locaux | premises; local (plural) | 415 | 5,382 |
| publics | public (plural); audiences | 424 | 7,909 |
| territoires | territories | 460 | 11,324 |
| européen | European (masculine) | 461 | 11,429 |
| collectivités | local authorities; communities | 488 | — |
| associations | associations; organisations | 508 | 15,557 |
| collectif | collective; group | 509 | 8,830 |
50 of the 500, chosen for ranking much higher in news writing than on the Speaking list, which is counted from film and TV subtitles, or for not being on it at all (—). Words among its first 1,000 are not shown here; the downloads hold all 500, in order.
How it was counted
Apera counted every word on news pages from 239 sites, collected in 2026. Left out: page furniture such as cookie banners, English, web addresses, names and numbers, and words used on only one site. Each form of a word is its own row. The Speaking ranks in the table are from the Speaking list.
This list: counted by Apera from news pages on 239 sites. Speaking ranks from FrequencyWords (CC BY-SA 3.0). Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Sources and credits