Common mistakes
Pinceau or brosse? Choose the French word for your brush
Compare paintbrushes, hairbrushes and toothbrushes with picture cards, a painting scene and a quiz. Learn pinceaux and the overlap in painting terms.
- A2
- 2 corrections
- Examples and fixes
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In short
A painting or make-up brush is commonly un pinceau; a hairbrush or toothbrush is une brosse à cheveux or une brosse à dents. Painting also uses brosse, as in une brosse plate. The task and the complete tool name help more than size.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
- un pinceauevery kind of brusha brush for applying paint, colour or make-up
Elle peint les fleurs avec un pinceau fin.She paints the flowers with a fine brush.
For a hairbrush, use une brosse à cheveux.
- une brosseonly a cleaning brusha brush for hair, teeth, cleaning and some painting tasks
Cette brosse plate sert à peindre.This flat brush is for painting.
For painting, un pinceau plat and une brosse plate can both be useful names.
Six brushes, six complete names
Find:
What is the difference between pinceau and brosse?
- Lina
Tu me passes le pinceau fin ? Je peins les feuilles.
Can you pass me the fine brush? I’m painting the leaves.
- Sam
Tiens. Et cette brosse plate, elle sert à quoi ?
Here you are. And what is this flat brush for?
- Lina
Je l’utilise pour le fond bleu.
I use it for the blue background.
- Sam
D’accord. Je pose les deux pinceaux ici.
All right. I’ll put the two paintbrushes here.
| Singular | Plural | Example |
|---|---|---|
| un pinceau | des pinceaux | Les pinceaux sont propres. |
| une brosse | des brosses | Cette brosse est neuve. |
| brosser | — | Je me brosse les cheveux. |
The ending changes in pinceau → pinceaux. Brosse simply adds -s. For grooming, keep the à phrase: à dents, à cheveux, à ongles. In painting, fin, large and plat describe the tool you want; a pinceau can be wide, and a brosse can apply paint.