à.
A with grave accent, a letter used in French mostly to distinguish some homographs and in transliteration.
Meaning & usage
A with grave accent, a letter used in French mostly to distinguish some homographs and in transliteration.
to (destination)
aller au bout
Je vais à Paris.
at, in, on (said of a particular place)
à la maison
à l'hôtel
at (said of a particular time)
à dix heures et quart
Je pars à cinq heures précises.
to (until)
Le spectacle sera de 18h à 21h.
on the, to (some directions)
Tournez à gauche !
Ne tournez pas encore à droite !
from (origin)
Nous prenons de l'eau au puits.
Je l'ai eu à la bibliothèque.
of (belonging to)
C'est un ami à moi.
Cette voiture est à John.
by
Je vais au travail à vélo.
peu à peu
to (used to express something not completed)
l'équipe à battre
Il n'y a jamais grand-chose à faire par ici.
used to make compound nouns to state what something is used for
moulin à poivre
sac à dos
used to describe a part of something, often translated into English as a compound adjective
un animal à quatre pattes
une femme au visage pâle
or, to (used to express an approximate number)
six à sept personnes
de vingt à trente ans
used to indicate the recipient or target of certain verb phrases.
mettre le feu à
clouer le bec à
with; (cooking) cooked with or in
un café au lait
une tarte aux pommes
till, until (used in farewells)
à plus tard
à bientôt
found in various interjections used as warnings or exhortations
au voleur !
à l'assassin !
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Old French a, a merge of Latin ad and ab.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.