Genre as a hedging adverb in contemporary French The French dictionary Le Robert defines GENRE as "a class of beings or objects that share the same origin or that are linked by the commonality of one or several of their attributes" (my translation). ‘Commonality’ and ‘identity’ are indeed two different things, so that GENRE implies both similarity and otherness. This paper sets out to account for the grammaticalization of GENRE by hypothesising that, contrary to the noun uses, the more recent (adverbial) uses have foregrounded the differentiating dimension. To test this hypothesis, we will explore the semantic variations of GENRE in contemporary French : -Comparison : Ce mec-là c’est genre/comme mon frère. -Illustration : Ils mettent en ligne notre liste (avec genre/par exemple le voyage de noce, les verres en cristal... etc.) -Approximation : Je paye genre/environ 1000 euros par mois. -Quotative : Il arrive il me fait genre/ il me dit j’ai faim j’ai faim. -Quotative expressing comparison : Il fait genre il veut pas de potes sur ce jeu mais c'est son rêve ! (…comme si il voulait pas…) In all such cases, GENRE will be analysed as the expression of a distance between the semantic content and its validation by the speaker. More specifically, the speaker validates the qualitative content of the utterance but does not introduce it as an actual (Quantitative) act of speech.