pertes

Perte is a French noun meaning loss; pertes is its plural. The term appears in English-language discussions mainly as a loanword in contexts related to French language usage or bilingual explanations, and in technical writing where French terminology is encountered. Etymologically, perte derives from Latin perdere, meaning to destroy or to lose. In French, pertes can denote material or abstract loss, including financial deficits, waste, or damage.

In finance and accounting, les pertes refer to expenses or events that reduce net income, such as operating losses, impairment losses, or extraordinary losses. They are recorded on income statements and affect profitability. Tracking pertes is essential for financial analysis, budgeting, and risk management.

In science and engineering, losses describe dissipation of energy, power, or signal strength. Examples include electrical resistance losses (copper loss), core losses in transformers, and frictional losses in mechanical systems. In statistics and machine learning, a loss function measures the discrepancy between predicted and actual values; models are trained by minimizing these losses.

In medical French usage, pertes may describe loss of blood (pertes sanguines) or other secretions; in everyday language, it can refer to losses in games, investments, or resources.

Across languages, perte and pertes often appear in phrases that specify the type of loss, such as perte de temps (waste of time) or perte de mémoire (memory loss), illustrating how the concept of loss is framed in different domains.