# dragueur



## COSteph

_Moderator note:
Several threads have been merged to create this one. __

_ Living in Paris, I have found out about the drageurs, men who hit on women ceaselessly.  Is this the proper spelling?  And what is the verb for this?  

Merci!

Stephanie


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## Gil

If you add a "u" to spell "dragueur", the verb is "draguer".  Without this "u", I don't know.


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## Fred_C

Hi. Maybe you are interested in the history of this word 
Originally, "draguer" it is a perfectly normal word meaning "to fish with a dragnet".
The meaning about "hitting on" women first appeared in the title of a film by Jean-Pierre Mocky : "Les dragueurs".


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## fabfab

How would you translate into English?


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## Bella1

fabfab said:


> How would you translate into English?


 
Womaniser? Flirt? He chats up women?


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## wijmlet

Thanks very much.


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## bh7

dragueur = skirt chaser


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## carolineR

Bella1 said:


> Womaniser? Flirt? He chats up women?


what about "he makes passes at women" ?


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## tamanoir

Back in the days of Alec Guiness they would have thought of ladykiller, wouldn't they?


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## wijmlet

Womanizer sounds best to me. Thanks.


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## wildan1

carolineR said:


> what about "he makes passes at women" ?


 
that would be "Step 2"--_make a pass_ means trying to kiss her, actually proposing to take her to bed, etc.

Step 1 is _hitting on women, going after women, chasing skirts_, etc.--_la drague_, quoi !

(When it doesn't work, in AE we say "He didn't even get to first base" -- baseball term)

_He's a real skirt-chaser _
_He'll go after anything in a skirt_

_Womanizer_ suggests he's really going to bed with many women (particularly said about a married man). A more recent term is _player._


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## carolineR

Thanks, Wildan


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## Pedro y La Torre

Player.......


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## fabfab

That's what the WordWeb dictionnary gives:

*womanizer* = a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them
*skirt-chaser* = a man who is aggressive in making amorous advances to women
*player* = a person who pursues a number of different social and sexual partners simultaneously

Some subttle variations...


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## alahay

Salut,

comment traduit-on dragueur (en argot, c'est celui qui drague les filles)
 en anglais US et UK.


Merci,
A


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## FélixT

Womanizer ou philanderer. J'ignore qui des Étasuniens ou des Britanniques utilise quoi par contre.


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## dewsy

A skirt-chaser


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## alahay

Thanks a bunch! I was expecting however something else which makes me now doubt the meaning of "dragueur". Does it really mean womanizer or is it more of a person who is "lucky" with women or someone who gets women easily and abundantly, so to speak...

Wildan, thanks for the reference. I searched for it but only found minesweeper as a translation which is not what I am looking for.


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## wildan1

alahay said:


> Thanks a bunch! I was expecting however something else which makes me now doubt the meaning of "dragueur". Does it really mean womanizer or is it more of a person who is "lucky" with women or someone who gets women easily and abundantly, so to speak...
> 
> Wildan, thanks for the reference. I searched for it but could not find it.


 
_Un dragueur/womanizer_ is amorously agressive with women.

Sometimes a man can be easily attractive to women without trying (lucky guy). AE slang for this is _a babe magnet_


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## wallacewalrus

"Player" is good. Most of the words I can think of either have a negative or a positive connotation. You can say "player" in a positive way to mean you are impressed with another guy and how often he gets with girls. Or a girl might call a guy a player and mean it in a negative way, like he's manipulative/lecherous. Womanizer is very negative, and also more formal. "Pimp" also works in the positive sense. Say if you admire some guy because he always sleeps with women, you might say "He's a pimp!", or "He's a stud!" Keep in mind that these are slang expressions, though.


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## BEEKEEPER

Je ne crois pas qu'un dragueur arrive toujours à ses fins...
Le tombeur, en revanche, voit ses efforts récompensés.


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## Xanthius

I don't like the idea of translating a _drageur_ as a flirt.  For in English, one who _pulls_ is very different to one who _flirts_. (although B will ofen lead to A!)... 

Does _drager_ have the feeling of 'fliting' or more that of 'pulling' which I belive it does?


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## ascoltate

I don't know what "pulling" is - but a "dragueur" is kind of like a lady-killer ...  I guess that's kind of a dated expression though...


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## gillyfr

I'd translate "dragueur" as "a smooth-talker".

But to answer your question Xanthius (hey! my family lives in Cheltenham and I used to!!), "draguer" means "to chat up". Does that mean _pull_ or _flirt _in your frame of reference?

To me, you can chat someone up, but only if you're either good at it or there's some chemistry will you pull, if that's your intention. But of course, you can chat someone up without the intention of pulling and just to flirt. "Draguer", to me, carries the same meanings.


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## gillyfr

ascoltate said:


> I don't know what "pulling" is - but a "dragueur" is kind of like a lady-killer ...  I guess that's kind of a dated expression though...



I think the appropriate AE expression for "pull" (in BE) is "score".


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## ascoltate

how about a "smooth talker" ...  that seems to give similar connotations...


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## tinkietlaguinguette

I really can't say, I don't think there is really a distinction between both in French.
Just that "un dragueur" is quite pejorative, it is generally a guy who goes out with a lot of women and flirting with almost all women he meets. As a result the women won't take him seriously. 
But "draguer" is quite different, as everyone do it sometimes. It can be innocent as it can be really a way to find a girl (or a guy) for the night at every cost.


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## ID_fX

bh7 said:


> dragueur = skirt chaser


 

faux:   skirt chaseur = coureur de jupons  (pretty old fashioned in France, but exactly the same meaning)


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## bh7

> faux:   skirt chaseur = coureur de jupons


Faux ??


> *dragueur*, nom
> u[Familier] Personne qui séduit, qui aime séduire. Un dragueur incorrigible.
> Source :  Antidote


Et " un dragueur incorrigible ", en anglais, c'est "an incorrigible skirt chaser" ou "an incorrigible womaniser".


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## edwingill

there is term "dragueur au volant. The English equivalent is"kerb crawler"


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## Bonjules

Hola,
with the apparently somewhat lenient attitude of French society and media towards sexual pursuit it is a bit difficult to be xactly sure what
'dragueur' would be in English. Is 'a flirt' too soft?


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## franc 91

a Casanova ? (but he was Italian wasn't he?)


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## lectrice

a womanizer (?)


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## franc 91

yes a womaniser is very good


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## Bonjules

thanks, lectrice and franc.

It appears then that 'draguer' can very well stay on the level of
seducing by 'charm' only ( as did Casanova, as far as I know, although I haven't seen him mentioned a lot in French).


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## Enquiring Mind

I agree with the other respondents: the best single-word noun-equivalent is "womaniser". though "casanova" is also okay.

It may be worth pointing out that the colloquial phrase to translate "draguer" is "*to be on the pull*".  When (or if) you succeed, you've pulled (no object needed - linguistically at least).

Unfortunately "to be on the pull" and "to pull" are the only forms of this idiom.  There isn't a one-word noun equivalent; it would be "someone on the pull". (You can't say "puller"  for "dragueur", it wouldn't be understood)

Now I come to think of it, there is also the phrase "a lady's man" or "a ladies' man" - you'll find both spellings, the second is probably more common.


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## sejean

I think "to pull" or "be on the pull" is strictly BE. I can't recall ever hearing this expression.

My introduction to the concept of a "dragueur" was the _French in Action_ episode where Jean-Pierre(?) tried to hit on every attractive young woman he saw by saying things like "Remember me? Didn't we meet in Saint-Tropez last year?" The women were not impressed. Consequently, I have the impression that a dragueur is a rather pathetic type. Am I wrong? Is there a strongly negative connotation to a dragueur? 

A womanizer is someone who "loves and leaves" a lot of women. I would think a dragueur _aspires_ to be a womanizer. In fact a womanizer need not even "draguer"; women may come to him if he is attractive and/or charismatic enough.

"Flirt" is quite innocent sounding. "Flirting" is often a mutual/consensual activity which is enjoyed by both parties. Someone can flirt without having any particular intentions.

That leaves...skirt chaser? (This has a very 1950s ring to it, for me.) A pickup artist? (To my knowledge, not a commonly used phrase nowadays, if it ever was.)

Maybe just "someone who hits on a lot of women"?


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## Enquiring Mind

Sejean is right - "to pull" in this sense is British English only.

Some more possibilities for "dragueur": a lecher, libertine, rake, roué - the last three are rather literary.


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## Bonjules

sejean said:


> I think "to pull" or "be on the pull" is strictly BE. I can't recall ever hearing this expression.
> 
> My introduction to the concept of a "dragueur" was the _French in Action_ episode where Jean-Pierre(?) tried to hit on every attractive young woman he saw by saying things like "Remember me? ............
> 
> A womanizer is someone who "loves and leaves" a lot of women. I would think a dragueur _aspires_ to be a womanizer. In fact a womanizer need not even "draguer"; women may come to him if he is attractive and/or charismatic enough.
> 
> 
> Maybe just "someone who hits on a lot of women"?


 
This I think is a very good point.
Except.....somebody just mentioned -as part of the current controversy-the concept of the 'dragueur lourde'.
Would that then be a 'heavy hitter'(????), but stay short of a 'shagger'?


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