Conservation and restoration in French

The eleventh entry is le produit de corrosion, and the plainest word in it is the one doing the most work. « Product » in English is the manufactured article and, in a sum, the result of a multiplication, and there it stops. Le produit holds both of those and two more that English hands to other words altogether. It is the substance in a bottle, so les produits d’entretien are cleaning materials, un produit de comblement is a filler and un produit corrosif is a corrosive. And it is money, so le produit de la vente is the proceeds, le produit de l’impôt is the revenue raised, and le produit intérieur brut is the figure read out on the news. What ties the four together is the old force of the verb: produire is to bring forth, and whatever has been brought forth is le produit — by a factory, by a chemist, by a sale, by a reaction. Read the noun as « what came out of it », and this entry falls into place at once: rust is not something lying on the iron, it is what the iron made.