University and exams

The list for a term at university, and it shows the same trick twice. Put an article in front of a French infinitive and you have a noun. Le savoir is knowledge — literally « the knowing » — and le devoir is literally « the having to », which is how the word for an obligation also became the word for a piece of homework: le devoir maison. The pattern is closed rather than free, but the members are common and worth knowing as a set: le pouvoir is power, le vouloir is will, le savoir-faire is know-how, le savoir-vivre is manners, le devenir is what something becomes. English cannot do this at all: it has to change the word (« knowledge », « power ») or reach for the -ing form, which is a different thing grammatically — « the knowing » is not English for knowledge.