joie

Joie is a French noun meaning joy, delight, or happiness. It is feminine (la joie) and forms the plural les joies. The term is used in everyday French to describe a feeling of pleasure or gladness and appears in countless expressions and literary contexts. In English, joie is typically encountered in borrowed phrases and brand names, where it carries a connotation of French elegance.

Etymology and linguistic context

Joie derives from Old French joie, itself from Latin gaudium (joy, pleasure). The word has been part of Romance-language vocabularies since antiquity and reached English through literary and cultural exchange with French. The plural form in French is joies; in English, the singular is most often used in phrases rather than adopting the full French plural.

Usage and phrases

In French, common collocations include exprimer de la joie (to express joy) and éprouver de la joie (to feel joy). A well-known bilingual phrase is joie de vivre, literally “joy of living,” which has been adopted into English to denote a lively, exuberant enjoyment of life. In English-language writing, joie often appears in cultural, artistic, or branding contexts rather than as everyday vocabulary.

Brands and cultural references

The term Joie is used as a brand name by several companies, including fashion labels and baby-products manufacturers, reflecting an appeal to sophistication and happiness associated with French culture. As a loanword, joie is sometimes capitalized in brand titles, while retaining its non-English sense in descriptive use.

Related terms

Joie belongs to a cross-language family of words for happiness, with Spanish gozo and Italian gioia sharing a common semantic field and cognate roots.