Tunnelling

The thirty-third entry is le revêtement définitif, the inner lining cast once the ground has stopped moving, and its adjective is a false friend that grows more dangerous as it grows longer. Définitif means final: the last state of a thing, the one nobody intends to replace. Le revêtement définitif comes after the temporary support, just as un résultat définitif follows a provisional one and une fermeture définitive is a closure that will not be reversed. The English « definitive » has drifted elsewhere. It now means authoritative, the version that settles a question, as in the definitive biography or the definitive answer, and a concrete lining is never that. The adverb is worse. Définitivement means permanently, for good: il a quitté le chantier définitivement says he has left and is not coming back. « Definitely » means certainly, and careful French says that with sans aucun doute or assurément. A reader who hears « definitely » in la galerie a été définitivement fermée keeps the confidence and drops the permanence, which in a tunnel file is the half that matters.