What does “une astuce” mean in French?

Une astuce is a clever shortcut that saves you effort: a way of cutting an avocado, a cleaning trick, a method for folding a shirt in three seconds. It is the word French uses where English now says “hack,” which is why it fills recipe channels and magazine headlines — astuces cuisine, astuces rangement. The adjective astucieux describes the mind behind it: resourceful, ingenious.

Les astuces de grand-mère is a genre of its own, the household remedies and shortcuts handed down at home — French for “old wives' tricks,” but used without a trace of irony in cooking and cleaning content. Two steps sideways: une combine is a trick with something slightly dodgy about it, and un conseil is plain advice with no cleverness claimed.