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If you are going on holiday this month, chances are that you will be among the 46% of French residents who prefer to head to the coast for their summer break. 

You probably know the key vocabulary for the seaside, but do you know about the Big Big?

Several coastal resorts including Belle-ÃŽle-en-Mer and Audierne in Finistère have restaurants called ‘Le Grand Large’, a name that both attracts and confuses English-speaking visitors with a grasp of French: grand means ‘big’, but surely large means the same thing, so why call your restaurant ‘The Big Big’? 

In fact, le grand large means the open sea, evocative of broad watery horizons and life on the ocean waves, so it is an apt name for a dining establishment with sea views, whether it is particularly big or not. 

Read also: Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­: the origins and meaning of ce n’est pas la mer à boire

In parallel, au grand air is all about being in the great outdoors and the fresh air, while anything that is au grand jour has been brought to light or exposed: le gouvernement a la responsabilité d'étaler tous les faits au grand jour means that the government is responsible for putting all the facts on the table, for bringing them to light.

Although il est grand means ‘he is tall’, sometimes grand can act like our word ‘wide’: une fenêtre grande ouverte is a wide-open window, and des yeux grands ouverts means that your eyes are open as wide as possible. 

Similarly, if you admire a person because elle voit les choses en grand, it means that she ‘thinks big’ and has ambitious ideas or sees the bigger picture.

Finally, we have a well-known expression pour le plus grand bonheur des petits et des grands, which is when something is a delight for people of all ages – much like a holiday by the sea!

Read also: Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­: What is the meaning of lancer une bouteille à la mer?