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I recently compiled for myself a list of all conjugations of every irregular verb in the French language, for over 350 verbs (as close to all of them as I could get.) I also had to translate the meaning of each verb, of course.

There were, however, about 20 verbs which I could not find English translations for anywhere on the internet, or which were very unusual and I did not understand. Could someone please provide translations for these verbs?

  • Aveindre
  • Choir
  • Contre-battre
  • Débouillir
  • Démordre
  • Dépourvoir
  • Déprendre
  • Désapprendre
  • Embatre
  • Messeoir
  • Mévendre
  • Paître (to graze, but in what sense? Against something, or on grass?)
  • Parfondre
  • Reclure
  • Recomparaître
  • Rentrouvrir
  • Revaloir
  • Se contrefoutre
  • Se ressouvenir
  • S'entre-nuire
  • Sourdre
  • Sous-tendre
Romain Valeri
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temporary_user_name
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    It should be “désapprendre” and “sourdre”. Most of the verbs you quote are very defective, some of them were totally unknown to me [and I'm a native speaker] (débouillir, parfondre, embat(t)re, aveindre). “Paître” is the way cows and sheeps eat and is the only “normal” verb of the list. Rentrouvrir and recomparaître seem odd to me: I don't think they really exist; it's just common practice to add the prefix “re—” before a verb to indicate repetition. So “recomparaître” and “rentrouvrir” are just (debatable) ways of saying “to appear again (in court)” and “to open slightly again”... –  Jun 11 '12 at 21:55
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    Désapprendre is exactly “unlearn”. –  Jun 11 '12 at 22:00
  • @Aššur-bāni-apli Why not try to formulate an answer? – Kareen Jun 11 '12 at 22:04
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    Laziness and absence of my dictionaries, mostly. –  Jun 11 '12 at 23:03
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    Maybe you could use this...? Anyway, thanks for this contribution to the list of verbs I'm using for my french sentences random generator (No, I don't use any corpus for it, obviously). – Romain Valeri Jun 11 '12 at 23:32
  • Nice link. I'll have to compare it against my list to find any missing entries. – temporary_user_name Jun 12 '12 at 00:27
  • @Kareen I've been trying to figure out how to make a list for as long as I've been a stack exchange user. Do you really have to click the list element button again for each new element? That's the only way I can ever get it to work, which is too much trouble for long lists. – temporary_user_name Jun 12 '12 at 00:28
  • @Aerovistae Nah, you just need a hyphen followed by a space to create a bullet. Adding a space before the hyphen will add an indent to your bullet. – Kareen Jun 12 '12 at 01:49
  • Bon bah tant pis pour la traduction, et encore merci @RomainVALERI pour la réponse… dommage. – Nikana Reklawyks Nov 14 '12 at 01:25

1 Answers1

20
  • Choir (to fall, defective verb, rarely used)
  • Démordre (the mechanical action opposed to to bite, i.e. to release after a bite. Nearly only used in the idiom ne pas vouloir en démordre which means not wanting to give up or hold one's position stubbornly)
  • Désapprendre (used frequently, meaning unlearn)
  • Paître (to feed on grass, used for ruminant animals mainly)
  • Reclure (to lock up (someone), synonym of enfermer) (Edit : more common in its adjective form, reclus-e, or the noun réclusion, as a side note to Aššur-bāni-apli's comment)
  • Recomparaître (like said in the question comments : to appear again in court, frequently used in legal/lawyers context)
  • Rentrouvrir (Entrouvrir meaning to open slightly, rentrouvrir is the repetition of this action)
  • Revaloir (another defective, with the nearly unique usage in the idiom Je te revaudrai ça ! = I'll repay you !, to show gratitude)
  • Se contrefoutre (offensive or vulgar register, meaning not to give a damn/give a shit)
  • Se ressouvenir ((as for Rentrouvrir above), Se souvenir meaning to remember, se ressouvenir means to remember again) (Edit : Thanks to Aššur-bāni-apli for this clarification of nuance: to remember again after having forgotten, which is slightly different...)
  • S'entre-nuire (describes the mutual action of causing harm/trouble one to each other)
  • Sourdre (rare verb, meaning to get out from something, but is used only for sound, water, or this kind of things, not people or solid objects)
  • Sous-tendre (hard to translate (any help is welcome !), meaning approximately to ground (something), to found (something), or to establish the base for (something)) (Edit : thanks to the comments we have also these propositions, to underlie and the almost-litteral to subtend thanks to Kareen, or to underpin from StéphaneGimenez)
  • Dépourvoir (approximately to deprive) (Edit : a lot more common in the adjective form dépourvu-e, thanks to StéphaneGimenez's comment)

The others are very rare (and very old, almost not used any more at all), but with a bit of searching...

  • Aveindre (to pull something out of somewhere, with an effort)
  • Contre-battre (I didn't find this form, but « contrebattre » exists, meaning to retaliate/to fire back (between two artillery devices))
  • Débouillir (to immerse in boiling water, to cleanse/whiten or to test tincture persistance on clothes)
  • Déprendre* (To release (someone) from something/someone else's grasp or dominance)
  • Embatre (Technical term used in wood wheels crafting, meaning to attach a circular piece of iron on a wheel's rim)
  • Messeoir (not to fit (socially or politically), or we could say not to be acceptable)
  • Mévendre* (I didn't know this one, but it is rather easy to guess for a native speaker, it means to sell for no profit or negative profit, i.e. to sell too cheaply)
  • Parfondre* (used for enamel/faience/earthenware crafting, but I'm definitely no smith to explain that. Any help is welcome, dear SE people)

* Found in an old dictionary (Larousse, 1920), a few precisions :

Déprendre (pran-dre) v.a. (Se conj. comme prendre) Isoler, dissoudre ce qui était pris, c'est-à-dire collé ou congelé. se déprendre v.pr. Se détacher.

Mévendre (van-dre) v.a. (du préf. mé et de vendre. - Se conj. comme vendre.) Vendre à perte.

Parfondre v.a. (du lat. perfundere, mélanger). Incorporer les couleurs à la plaque de verre ou d'émail et les faire fondre également.

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Romain Valeri
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    I think sous-tendre could be translated as underlie (as in an underlying cause) or subtend? – Kareen Jun 11 '12 at 22:51
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    Apparemment, ressouvenir a aussi un sens (rare et littéraire !) spécifique : http://cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/ressouvenir ; j'avoue que je l'ignorais. Et pour moi, reclure n'existe guère qu'au participe passé, peut-être faudrait-il le souligner ? –  Jun 11 '12 at 23:02
  • Plus important : félicitations pour ta réponse. Je n'avais pas ce courage. –  Jun 11 '12 at 23:02
  • @Aššur-bāni-apli Merci, mais pour te retourner le compliment : il se trouve que c'est ton commentaire qui m'a donné le courage de me lancer ! – Romain Valeri Jun 11 '12 at 23:16
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    Cherche le participe passé de dépourvoir sur google, tu verras que la langue française n'est est pas complètement dépourvue, contrairement à la fourmi ;-) – Stéphane Gimenez Jun 11 '12 at 23:31
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    Sous-tendre c'est plutôt underpin (au sens figuré), non?. – Stéphane Gimenez Jun 11 '12 at 23:34
  • @StéphaneGimenez Bravo pour dépourvoir... ! J'avais oublié le participe passé... Mévendre, je lis pas mal de journaux/périodiques, jamais vu... peut-être dans certaines presses spécifiques ? (économie ? finances ?) – Romain Valeri Jun 11 '12 at 23:42
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    Where the hell did you find the word "ruminant"? Never heard that one before, had to look it up. Also, how is "unlearn" used frequently? That seems very unusual, looking at it from an English language perspective. I also am very confused as to the explanation of sourdre. Lastly, I'm really glad I know the definition of embatre now...that's sure to come in handy when I visit France and need to purchase a custom wagon. Honestly though, GREAT answer. Thanks. – temporary_user_name Jun 12 '12 at 00:34
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    En tout cas, « aveindre » me plaît énormément (il faut admettre qu'il est plus charmant que « galérer à choper » qui serait ma première tentative de traduction en français contemporain). Je vais essayer de le réutiliser. –  Jun 12 '12 at 01:21
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    @Aerovistae ruminant means the same in french and english, but I guess it's much less used in this form in english. Sourdre is rare indeed, only used in literature, never in oral/casual context. Désapprendre is not used on a daily basis, that's for sure, but I think the majority of native speakers hear it from time to time (hint : before learning useful/adequate knwoledge, you must unlearn the bad habits or bad assumptions you had in the first place.). – Romain Valeri Jun 12 '12 at 07:17
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    Could contre-battre mean to counter-attack or to fight back in general? – CJ Dennis May 01 '16 at 11:14
  • @CJ Dennis It's a term reserved for artillery, it would be strange and out of context between two people in the streets... if we were a hundred years ago. But today? it would be completely unheard of. – Romain Valeri Oct 18 '19 at 00:30