arrondissement

noun

ar·​ron·​disse·​ment ə-ˈrän-də-smənt  ˌa-ˌrōⁿ-(ˌ)dē-ˈsmäⁿ 

1

: an administrative district of some large French cities

2

: the largest division of a French department

Examples of arrondissement in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The daughter of an engineer, she was raised in a cultured bourgeois household in the affluent 16th arrondissement and studied ballet at the Conservatoire de Paris. —Jordan Mintzer, HollywoodReporter, 28 Dec. 2025

Located in the heart of Paris’ 10th arrondissement, the new 16,000-square-foot space spans multiple floors that will serve as a flagship creative and strategic center designed to accelerate the brand’s global impact, the company said. —Stephen Garner, Footwear News, 11 Dec. 2025

Nestled in the chic 8th arrondissement, the Élysée Collection is made up of nine luxury apartment units created in partnership with the real estate operator Herrmann Immeubles Group. —Annie Archer, Travel + Leisure, 29 Nov. 2025

By this point, 39 people had been fatally wounded in the attacks on cafes and restaurants in Paris’ 10th and 11th arrondissements, while the bloody siege of the Bataclan concert hall, which would claim the lives of 90 people, had begun. —Tom Williams, New York Times, 13 Nov. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, "action of making round or rounding off, circumscription of boundaries, extension of a territory, subdivision of a French department," going back to Middle French, "rounding off," from arrondiss-, variant stem of arrondir "to make round, round off" (going back to Old French arondir, from a-, prefix forming transitive verbs — going back to Latin ad- ad- — + -rondir, verbal derivative of reund, rond round entry 1) + -ment -ment

First Known Use

1746, in the meaning defined at sense 2