| denimThe cloth is named for Nîmes, not for jeans. | Nîmes | From its product | Well attested |
| bayonetThe blade is traditionally tied to a port in the Basque country. | Bayonne | From its product | Probable |
| champagneThe drink is a place-name first, a party word second. | Champagne | From its product | Well attested |
| cognacThe brandy is the town’s name in a glass. | Cognac | From its product | Well attested |
| cayenneThe heat is named for a capital on the Atlantic coast of South America. | Cayenne | From its product | Well attested |
| limousineThe luxury car is named for a cloak from Limousin. | Limoges | From its product | Well attested |
| roquefortThe blue cheese is a village in the Aveyron. | Roquefort-sur-Soulzon | From its product | Well attested |
| camembertThe cheese is a Norman village. | Camembert | From its product | Well attested |
| BeaujolaisThe wine is named for a former lordship, not a town. | Beaujolais | From its product | Well attested |
| burgundyThe colour is a French wine region. | Burgundy | From its product | Well attested |
| chambrayThe cloth is named for a city in northern France. | Cambrai | From its product | Well attested |
| ChardonnayThe grape is named for a village in Burgundy. | Chardonnay | From the place | Well attested |
| chartreuseThe colour is named after a monastery in the Alps. | Grande Chartreuse | From its product | Well attested |
| gasconadeBragging is named for a region of south-west France. | Gascony | From its people | Well attested |
| vichyssoiseThe cold soup is named for a French spa town. | Vichy | From its people | Well attested |
| dacquoiseThe meringue cake is the feminine of from Dax. | Dax | From its people | Well attested |
| GravettianA prehistoric culture is named for a French rock shelter. | La Gravette | From the place | Well attested |
| mirepoixThe vegetable base is named for a duke, whose title is a town. | Mirepoix | Indirect | Probable |
| barègeThe gauzy dress fabric is named for a Pyrenean spa. | Bareges | From its product | Well attested |
| CondrieuThe wine is named for a small Rhone commune. | Condrieu | From its product | Well attested |
| MarseillaiseThe anthem is named for the volunteers who sang it into Paris. | Marseille | From its people | Well attested |
| Dijon mustardThe mustard is named for a Burgundian city. | Dijon | From its product | Well attested |
| Eccles cakeThe currant pastry is named for a Lancashire town. | Eccles | From its product | Well attested |
| French hornThe orchestra's horn is French only in English. | France | From its people | Well attested |
| French windowA whole family of English words for fittings points at France. | France | From its people | Well attested |
| Niçoise saladThe salad is the adjective for Nice. | Nice | From its people | Well attested |
| plaster of ParisThe plaster is named for the gypsum quarries of Montmartre. | Paris | From its product | Well attested |
| Cro-MagnonEurope's first modern humans are named for a rock shelter behind a village hotel. | Les Eyzies | From the place | Well attested |
| Dunkirk spiritBritain's favorite morale phrase commemorates a retreat, not a victory. | Dunkirk | From the place | Well attested |
| French leaveThe French say the same thing about the English: filer à l'anglaise. | France | From its people | Well attested |
| French polishA French finish made from a resin secreted by an insect farmed in India. | France | From its people | Probable |
| French ticklerEnglish pins anything sexual on France; French does the same to England. | France | From its people | Probable |
| Marseille soapProtected by royal edict in 1688 and by nothing whatsoever today. | Marseille | From its product | Well attested |
| Paris-BrestThe pastry is a bicycle wheel, baked for a 750-mile race. | Paris | From the place | Probable |
| Savoy cabbageThe wrinkles are named for an Alpine duchy that no longer exists. | Savoy | From the place | Probable |
| Sèvres wareA king's porcelain works made a Paris suburb a synonym for luxury. | Sèvres | From the place | Well attested |
| take French leaveThe French return the insult precisely: they call it leaving English style. | France | From its people | Well attested |
| troy grainGold is weighed in units named for a market town in Champagne. | Troyes | From the place | Probable |
| troy ounceGold is priced in an ounce named for a French market town, not ancient Troy. | Troyes | From the place | Probable |
| troy poundA pound of gold weighs less than a pound of feathers. | Troyes | From the place | Probable |
| Vauclusian springA whole class of springs named after one hole in Provence. | Fontaine-de-Vaucluse | From the place | Well attested |
| AurignacianA village of a few hundred people in the Pyrenean foothills gave its name to the first modern humans in Europe. | Aurignac | From the place | Well attested |
| baccaratThe game shares its name with a Lorraine glassmaking town, and nobody can prove the connection. | Baccarat | From the place | Disputed |
| ceyssatiteThe name for a French village became a general term for the diatom earths of four neighboring departments. | Ceyssat | From the place | Probable |
| franciumIts discoverer first wanted to call it catium, and was told it would sound like cat in English. | France | From the place | Well attested |
| French breadFor most of its life in English the phrase had nothing to do with the baguette. | France | From the place | Well attested |
| French doorAmericans call it a door and the British call the same thing a window. | France | From the place | Well attested |
| galliumIts discoverer had to publish a denial that he had secretly named the element after himself. | Gaul | Indirect | Well attested |
| ginghamTwo countries claim this fabric's name, and the earliest cloth backs the one without the town. | Guingamp | Indirect | Disputed |
| kersantiteThe same stone carved into Brittany's roadside calvaries became an international rock name. | Loperhet | From the place | Well attested |
| lherzoliteGeologists model the whole of Earth's upper mantle on a rock named after one small Pyrenean lake. | Étang de Lers | From the place | Well attested |
| lutetiumGerman chemistry journals refused the name for fifty years and printed a rival one instead. | Paris | Indirect | Well attested |
| mornayNobody can settle whether the sauce honors a French village or a Huguenot diplomat. | Mornay | Disputed | Disputed |
| Nice modelA French city gave its name to the standard account of how the solar system settled down. | Nice | From the place | Well attested |
| randanniteFrench dynamite was soaked into this stuff, quarried from peat bogs in the Auvergne. | Randan | From the place | Well attested |
| rauenthaliteThere is a Rauenthal in Germany famous for Riesling; this is not it. | Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines | From the place | Well attested |
| SolutreanA limestone crag now better known for white wine names a stone toolmaking tradition. | Rock of Solutré | From the place | Well attested |