la laine (len) noun, feminine
  1. wool

Hear today’s word: Download laine.wav

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Expressions:
tirer la laine = to steal
se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos = "to allow oneself to be fleeced" (to let people take advantage of you)

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Citation du Jour:
La raison rétrécit la vie, comme l’eau rétrécit les tricots de laine.
Reason shrinks life, like water shrinks wool sweaters. –René Barjavel

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A Day in a French Life…

Those sly Parisian women, coming up with a new mode* and changing all the fashion rules just when a trying-to-fit-in tourist least expects it. Who could have guessed that wool caps and lined gloves were de rigueur* in July — only two weeks after the capital’s heat wave?

As I ride the Paris métro from la Bastille toward les Champs-Élysées, my eyes scan the female passengers. I see a woman in suede boots and another nana* in a wool blazer. The lady reading a Folio paperback has her chin tucked into the scarf which covers her from collar to earlobe. Even the French children co-conspire to leave me fashion-flummoxed with their layered tops and knee-high chaussettes en laine.*

I arrived in Paris over the week-end toting a sundress and a spaghetti-string top (among other impracticals) when the Parisian women pulled the fashion carpet out from beneath my flip-flopped feet.

There, shivering among the shawl-wearers, I did a one hundred and eighty degree fashion about-face. But then, speaking of degrees, it must be said that the temperature had dropped considerably. Perhaps the Parisians aren’t so much fashion innovistas as they are frileuses.*

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*References: prêt-à-porter = ready-to-wear; la mode (f) = fad; de rigueur = required by fashion; une nana (f) = a woman; les chaussettes en laine (f) = wool socks; frileuse, frileux (adj)= sensitive to cold