dors bien, mon amour
In French, "sleep well, my love" is said as dors bien, mon amour.
This phrase is used to wish a romantic partner a good night's sleep. You can also use the alternative fais de beaux rêves, mon amour, which literally means "make beautiful dreams".
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase is composed of the imperative verb dors (sleep), the adverb bien (well) and the noun phrase mon amour (my love).
Which one should you use?
While dors bien, mon amour is the standard informal way to address a romantic partner, dormez bien, mon amour would be used if addressing more than one person or if you were using the formal vous (though the latter is rare for a romantic partner).
Did you know?
- Despite being used to address a woman, the word amour remains grammatically masculine. This means you will always use the masculine mon amour regardless of your partner's gender.
- The word amour is an outlier in French phonetic history. While most Latin-derived words followed a specific evolutionary path, amour took a detour that likely owes its unique spelling to the influence of Old Occitan.
- The possessive 'my' in mon amour might not be purely Latin. It may have been shaped by the influence of the word mon from Gaulish, the Celtic language spoken in ancient France.
Examples in context
- Fais de beaux rêves, mon amourHave beautiful dreams, my love
- Repose-toi bien, mon amourRest well, my love
- Dors bien, mon amour. Je t'aime.Sleep well, my love. I love you.
- Bonne nuit et dors bien, mon amour.Good night and sleep well, my love.
- Je t'aime, dors bien, mon amour.I love you, sleep well, my love.
Example conversation
Chloé and Hugo are getting ready for bed in their apartment.
- ChloéJe vais me coucher.I am going to bed.
- HugoMoi aussi, bonne nuit Chloé.Me too, good night Chloé.
- ChloéDors bien, mon amour.Sleep well, my love.
- HugoMerci, à demain.Thank you, see you tomorrow.
Sources
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries amour, bien, mon, CC BY-SA 4.0.
