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I asked on a learning site the French translation for "many meanings."
I was offered the version of "plusieurs significations."
In the body of my question, I had given as a possible translation the phrase "beaucoup de sens."
Knowing that sens is both meaning and meanings, was not my translation also correct?
Your translation is indeed correct as such, but might be misinterpreted, mainly because sens is written and pronounced the same way singular or plural. Out of any context, beaucoup de sens might mean a lot of sense.
I would indeed use plusieurs significations, or différentes significations but if you want to use your locution, I would then say:
... beaucoup de sens différents.
The différents here implies plural form of sens, translating to meanings instead of meaning.
maintes is indeed really outdated and I wouldn't use it outside a very formal context.
Jun 26, 2017 at 12:53
maintes. Besides, maintes sens is wrong, because mainte is feminine. The masculine is maint, so maints sens would be okay. In addition, maint/mainte is used for uncountable nouns, while maints/maintes is used for countable nouns.
Jun 26, 2017 at 21:52
You could also say: « X a de nombreux sens », « X a des sens multiples » or « X a bien des sens ». It is difficult to translate an expression without knowing the rest of the sentence.
