List of English words of French origin

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The pervasiveness of words of French origin that have been borrowed into English is comparable to that of borrowings from Latin. Estimates vary up, but up to 45% of all English words may have a French origin.^{[1][verification needed][better source needed]} This suggests that up to 80,000 words should appear in this list. The list, however, only includes words directly borrowed from French, so it includes both joy and joyous but does not include derivatives with English suffixes such as joyful, joyfulness, partisanship, and parenthood.

Furthermore, the list excludes compound words in which only one of the elements is from French, e.g. ice cream, sunray, jellyfish, killjoy, lifeguard, and passageway, and English-made combinations of words of French origin, e.g. grapefruit (grape + fruit), layperson (lay + person), magpie, marketplace, petticoat, and straitjacket. Also excluded are words that come from French but were introduced into English via another language, e.g. commodore, domineer, filibuster, ketone, loggia, lotto, mariachi, monsignor, oboe, paella, panzer, picayune, ranch, vendue, and veneer.

English words of French origin should be distinguished from French words and expressions in English.

Although French is mostly derived from Latin, important other word sources are Gaulish and some Germanic languages, especially Old Frankish. Since English is of Germanic origin, words that have entered English from French borrowings of Germanic words might not look especially French.

Latin accounts for about 60% of English vocabulary either directly or via a Romance language. As both English and French have taken many words from Latin, determining whether a given Latin word came into English via French or not is often difficult.