14/08/2026
WHAT ACTUALLY IS A PARQUET FLOOR?
This subject comes up surprisingly often, particularly when English and French terminology collide.
If you are from the uk or other English speaking countries, there is a good chance that when somebody says “parquet flooring”, you immediately picture small pieces of wood arranged into a decorative geometric pattern perhaps herringbone, chevron, basket weave or something approaching the elaborate floors associated with Versailles.
That understanding isn’t completely wrong.
It is simply much narrower than the French meaning of the word.
And that distinction matters when discussing wooden floors in France.
THE COMMON English INTERPRETATION
In modern English, parquet is commonly understood as a floor made from pieces of hardwood arranged in a decorative pattern.
That is reflected in English dictionaries, which typically emphasise pieces or blocks of wood arranged in a pattern.
Consequently, many people separate wooden flooring into two mental categories:
Straight boards = wooden/plank flooring
Patterned blocks or pieces = parquet
That distinction makes sense within modern British usage.
But it does not define how the word parquet is used in France.
THE FRENCH DEFINITION
Parquet is a French word, and French building and flooring terminology uses it considerably more broadly.
The Académie française defines parquet as an:
“Assemblage de lames ou de planches de bois…”
In other words, an assembly of wooden flooring strips or boards forming the floor of a room.
Notice what that definition does not say.
It does not say that parquet must be herringbone.
It does not say that parquet must be chevron.
It does not say that parquet must consist of little blocks.
It certainly does not say that the timber must form a decorative geometric pattern before it can be called parquet.
The pattern describes the type of parquet.
It does not determine whether the floor is parquet in the first place.
PARQUET IS THE FAMILY — THE PATTERN DESCRIBES THE TYPE
In French terminology, all of these can be parquet:
Parquet Versailles the famous panelled geometric construction.
Parquet à bâtons rompus what English speakers generally call herringbone.
Parquet en point de Hongrie commonly called chevron in English.
Parquet à l’échelle the ladder-style arrangement found in historic French interiors.
Parquet à l’anglaise wooden flooring whose strips run parallel to one another.
Yes, you read that correctly.
French terminology specifically recognises straight, parallel-laid wooden flooring as parquet.
In fact, one established French definition describes parquet à l’anglaise simply as:
“Parquet dont les lames sont parallèles.”
A parquet floor whose boards/strips are parallel.
SO WHY DOES THIS ARGUMENT KEEP HAPPENING?
Because people naturally take the terminology they learned in their own country and assume that it is universal.
It isn’t.
An English tradesman may look at a straight oak floor and say:
“That’s a wooden floor, but it isn’t parquet.”
A French parqueteur can look at exactly the same floor and correctly call it:
“un parquet.”
Neither language has to adopt the other’s modern convention.
The mistake occurs when someone takes the British definition of a borrowed French word and tries to use it to correct French flooring terminology.
That is where the argument falls apart.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL BOARDS?
In French flooring terminology, the individual elements are normally called lames de parquet.
They may be machined with rainure et languette tongue and groove depending upon the construction and period.
The fact that those pieces are long, straight and laid parallel does not magically stop the completed wooden floor from being parquet.
Pattern and construction are two different questions.
LANGUAGE MATTERS IN RESTORATION
When restoring historic buildings, terminology isn’t academic nit-picking.
It tells us something about where a floor was made, when it was made, how it was constructed and the tradition of the craftsmen who installed it.
So when I am discussing a French floor, I use French flooring terminology rather than trying to force a modern British interpretation onto several centuries of French craftsmanship.
A Versailles floor is parquet.
A herringbone floor is parquet.
A point de Hongrie floor is parquet.
An échelle floor can be parquet.
A traditional straight-laid wooden floor can also be parquet.
Parquet does not mean “pattern.”
The pattern tells you what type of parquet you are looking at.
Sometimes the confusion isn’t in the floor.
It’s in the translation.
Written to help break the barriers of languages.
Brad Quarless
Restauration / Pose Parquets/
Rénovateur de parquets et ébéniste -
07 86 72 08 91
Email: [email protected]
www.parfaitparquet.fr
Siret: 8415819290020
