Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Word Of The Week

buanderie

This week's word was suggested by Claude from Blogging in Paris. She's visiting Saint-Aignan this week and came by to see us. While showing her around the house, we passed through what we call the utility room. It's the place were the furnace, water heater, storage units, and washer and dryer are located.

Claude said, "Ah, la buanderie !" I of course had to ask what that was and she said it would make a good word of the week. Et voilà.

Our buanderie.

La buanderie is the place in a house where the laundry is done, in other words, the laundry room. It's a form of the noun bouandier (ière) which refers to the workers who do laundry on an industrial scale. From what I can tell, it comes from an old verb buer, to do laundry. That word's origins are from gallo-roman times.

Merci, Claude !

3 comments:

  1. Thank YOU!
    I learnt about bouandier and buer thanks to you. Had no idea where the word came from!

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  2. And I never heard of this word before and it will have escaped my memory by demain!

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  3. In Quebec, that's what they call laundromats.

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