Vocabulary list
Réutilisable or jetable: French words for everyday objects
Learn reusable and disposable in French with six picture cards. Compare réutilisable, réutilisé, jetable and jeté, then check adjective agreement.
- A2
- 8 words
- Gender marked
- With examples
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
Réutilisable means reusable: made or suitable for repeated use. Jetable means disposable: intended to be thrown away after use. Compare un gobelet réutilisable with un gobelet jetable.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learnRed watch out
Use it again
Use and disposal
Six objects to recognise
Find:
A property or an action?
| Phrase | Meaning | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| une boîte réutilisable | a reusable box | It is suitable for another use. |
| une boîte réutilisée | a reused box | It has been used again. |
| une serviette jetable | a disposable napkin | It is intended for disposal after use. |
| une serviette jetée | a discarded napkin | Someone has thrown it away. |
Cette boîte est réutilisable, mais elle n’a servi qu’une fois.
This box is reusable, but it has only been used once.
Réutilisable describes a property; it gives no count of completed uses.
Both adjectives have the same masculine and feminine singular form: un sac réutilisable, une boîte réutilisable; un gobelet jetable, une serviette jetable. Add -s in the plural: des sacs réutilisables, des serviettes jetables.
Recyclable describes the possibility of recycling the material. Recyclé describes material already recycled. Those labels answer a different question from how many times an object is intended to be used. A description can give both: un sac réutilisable en plastique recyclé.