The article deals with the peculiarities of using, comparing and translating borrowings in the technical and physical terminology of the French language. The object of research is borrowings from Greek, Latin and English. The subject of the research is the peculiarities of their formation, use and translation. It has been revealed that the lexical composition of technical and physical terminology formed in the early stages is balanced by words of Latin and Greek origin. This is due to the fact that a significant number of scientific treatises were written in Latin, which served as a source for the nomination of many new concepts. The process of borrowing from Latin was carried out by lexical units that were assimilated in accordance with the orthographic and phonetic norms of the French language. Borrowings from Greek into the technical and physical terminology are represented by the elements auto-, photo-, micro-, nano-, mono-. They were combined with the lexemes of the French language to form term elements that acquired a new lexical meaning. The post-industrial and information periods are characterised by an intensive growth of English borrowings in the technical and physical terminology of the French language. Denotative borrowings that arise due to the need to nominate new concepts, processes or phenomena are analyzed. Connotative borrowings denote concepts that already have their own name in French. Such terms are characterised by a narrowed semantics in the recipient language, so their use is limited to the physical, technical and related term systems. The classification of borrowings by the degree of assimilation and productivity, changes that English borrowings have undergone in the French language are considered. On the basis of professional texts, it is presented that borrowed neologisms can be combined with abbreviated symbols. Such word forms are resistant to assimilation processes due to their conciseness, informativeness and prevalence among scientists in leading research centres.