French Word of the Day: Poste

Local France

27-03-2025

Why do I need to know
poste?
Because this French term simply has too many different meanings.
What does it mean?
Poste
- roughly pronounced to rhyme with tossed (not powsed as some English-speakers do) - is one of those French words most people think they know already.
This French noun changes meaning depending on the gender (
la
or
le
) and the context. For example, you are probably familiar with La Poste, which is the French national postal service.
If you send something
par la poste
, you are sending it by post (or mail).
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On the other hand,
un poste
(masculine) refers to a position or job, or a work location or premises (for example,
un poste de sécurité
would be 'the security post/ station').
You might have heard of the popular (and controversial) French TV show
Touche pas à mon poste.
Confusingly, this translates as 'Don't Touch My TV Set'.
The old-fashioned way to describe a television set in French is a
poste de télévision
or a
récepteur de télévision.
Over time, people started abbreviating it to either just
poste
or
télé
.
Once upon a time, people also described a radio set as a
poste de radio
, though this is not commonly used anymore.
And finally, as the world becomes more and more connected by the internet, anglicisms like 'Facebook post' have made their way into French too, much to the dismay of France's Académie Française.
However, a blog post or an Instagram post would be written as
un post
instead of
un poste
.
That said, you might hear a young person say
j'ai posté sur Insta
(I posted [a picture] on Instagram).
Use it like this
J'ai accepté un nouveau poste, je vais donc bientôt changer de ville.
- I accepted a new position, so I'll soon be moving cities.
Avez-vous envoyé la lettre par la poste ? J'espère qu'elle arrivera bientôt.
- Did you send the letter through the postal service? Hopefully it arrives soon.