cahiers

Cahiers is the plural form of the French noun cahier, meaning a notebook, pad, or exercise book. In everyday use, cahiers refer to bound volumes kept for notes, receipts, or records, and the term can denote a collection of writings or documents.

Cahiers de doléances were the records of grievances and requests prepared by members of the three estates in the late 1780s for the Estates-General of 1789. Prepared in the various provinces, these cahiers expressed public demands for constitutional reforms and taxation changes, and they are seen as early examples of organized public political consultation that helped spark the French Revolution.

A prominent cultural usage is Cahiers du Cinéma, a French film magazine founded in 1951 and influential in shaping the auteur theory and the French New Wave. It is associated with critics such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Éric Rohmer, and it has remained a reference point in film criticism as media landscapes evolved.

More generally, cahier appears in various titles and collections that publish volumes of writings, notes, or study material in French, reflecting the term’s association with organized written material and documentation.