What does “enfiler” mean in French?
Routine du matin en français très simple
A1 French listening practice · French from France · Picked for people who know a little
Enfiler comes from fil, thread, and its first job is enfiler une aiguille, to thread a needle. Applied to clothes it means to slip something on in one movement — j’enfile mon pantalon, j’enfile mes chaussettes — because your leg goes through the garment the way thread goes through a needle. It is quicker and more physical than mettre, which just means “put on.”
The image keeps working: enfiler des perles is to thread beads and, figuratively, to waste time on something pointless. In this morning routine enfiler alternates with mettre (je mets ma veste, je mets mes chaussures), and the reflexives show a rule worth stealing: French says je me brosse les dents and je me lave les mains — reflexive verb plus the teeth, never my teeth.
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Harder words in this video
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.