40 in French
quarante
Spellings verified June 2026 · page updated 2 October 2026
A regular round ten, the same everywhere
“Forty in French” is quarante, the number 40. Hear it spoken below.
NUMERAL
40
FRENCH
quarante
IPA
/ka.ʁɑ̃t/
Breakdown
Ordinal form
Ranking things rather than counting them: 40 becomes quarantième, written 40e in figures.
MASCULINE
quarantième
40e
FEMININE
quarantième
40e (same word as the masculine)
French writes the abbreviation with a plain e, never ème: 40e. The Académie française allows two irregular pairs: premier and première abbreviate 1er and 1re, and second and seconde abbreviate 2d and 2de. Full rules on the ordinal numbers reference.
Counting around 40
Real sentence examples
“Il a quarante ans cette année.”
“Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs est un conte célèbre.”
“Le département quarante est celui des Landes.”
Pronunciation and morphology notes
Quarante is the regular tens form from Latin quadraginta (compare trente, cinquante, soixante). Standalone quarante takes no connector; only quarante et un at 41 uses the et connector. It is identical in France, Belgium and Switzerland, since the regional septante / huitante / nonante forms only affect 70, 80 and 90. La quarantaine is the collective noun for the age range around 40, and also gives modern French (and English) the word "quarantine" from the original forty-day isolation period.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say forty (40) in French?
Forty in French is "quarante" (the number 40). It is built as 4 x 10 = 40.
How is quarante (40) pronounced in French?
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, "quarante" is transcribed /ka.ʁɑ̃t/. Use the audio button on this page to hear the standard French pronunciation.
What is the ordinal form of 40 in French?
The ordinal for 40 is "quarantième", abbreviated 40e. The form is the same in the masculine and the feminine.
How is 40 used in a French sentence?
A natural example is: "Il a quarante ans cette année."
Related numbers
Want to convert another number, or hear it spoken in Belgium / Swiss French?