blasphémer

See also: blasphemer

French

Etymology

From Old French blasfemer, which was borrowed from Late Latin blasphēmāre. Doublet of blâmer, which was inherited.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blas.fe.me/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

blasphémer

1. to blaspheme
   • 1992, Amélie Nothomb, Hygiène de l’assassin [The Assassin’s Hygiene] (fiction):

     Cessez de blasphémer, vile créature ! Apprenez, ignorante, que saint Prétextat était archevêque de Rouen au VI^e siècle, et grand ami de Grégoire de Tours, qui était un homme très bien, dont vous n’avez naturellement jamais entendu parler.

     Stop blaspheming, you vile creature! You’d better learn, ignorant woman, that Saint Praetextatus was Archbishop of Rouen in the 6^th century, and a friend of Gregory of Tours, who was a very good man, which you, unsurprisingly, never heard of.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like céder. It is a regular -er verb, except that its last stem vowel alternates between /e/ (written 'é') and /ɛ/ (written 'è'), with the latter being used before mute 'e'. One special case is the future stem, used in the future and the conditional. Before 1990, the future stem of such verbs was written blasphémer-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written blasphèmer-, reflecting the now common pronunciation /ɛ/, thereby making this distinction consistent throughout the conjugation (and also matching in this regard the conjugations of verbs like lever and jeter). Both spellings are in use today, and both are therefore given here.

Conjugation of blasphémer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	blasphémer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	blasphémant /blas.fe.mɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		blasphémé /blas.fe.me/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	blasphème /blas.fɛm/	blasphèmes /blas.fɛm/	blasphème /blas.fɛm/	blasphémons /blas.fe.mɔ̃/	blasphémez /blas.fe.me/	blasphèment /blas.fɛm/
	imperfect	blasphémais /blas.fe.mɛ/	blasphémais /blas.fe.mɛ/	blasphémait /blas.fe.mɛ/	blasphémions /blas.fe.mjɔ̃/	blasphémiez /blas.fe.mje/	blasphémaient /blas.fe.mɛ/
	past historic2	blasphémai /blas.fe.me/	blasphémas /blas.fe.ma/	blasphéma /blas.fe.ma/	blasphémâmes /blas.fe.mam/	blasphémâtes /blas.fe.mat/	blasphémèrent /blas.fe.mɛʁ/
	future	blasphèmerai or blasphémerai /blas.fɛm.ʁe/	blasphèmeras or blasphémeras /blas.fɛm.ʁa/	blasphèmera or blasphémera /blas.fɛm.ʁa/	blasphèmerons or blasphémerons /blas.fɛm.ʁɔ̃/	blasphèmerez or blasphémerez /blas.fɛm.ʁe/	blasphèmeront or blasphémeront /blas.fɛm.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	blasphèmerais or blasphémerais /blas.fɛm.ʁɛ/	blasphèmerais or blasphémerais /blas.fɛm.ʁɛ/	blasphèmerait or blasphémerait /blas.fɛm.ʁɛ/	blasphèmerions or blasphémerions /blas.fɛ.mə.ʁjɔ̃/ or /blas.fe.mə.ʁjɔ̃/	blasphèmeriez or blasphémeriez /blas.fɛ.mə.ʁje/ or /blas.fe.mə.ʁje/	blasphèmeraient or blasphémeraient /blas.fɛm.ʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	blasphème /blas.fɛm/	blasphèmes /blas.fɛm/	blasphème /blas.fɛm/	blasphémions /blas.fe.mjɔ̃/	blasphémiez /blas.fe.mje/	blasphèment /blas.fɛm/
	imperfect2	blasphémasse /blas.fe.mas/	blasphémasses /blas.fe.mas/	blasphémât /blas.fe.ma/	blasphémassions /blas.fe.ma.sjɔ̃/	blasphémassiez /blas.fe.ma.sje/	blasphémassent /blas.fe.mas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	blasphème /blas.fɛm/	—	blasphémons /blas.fe.mɔ̃/	blasphémez /blas.fe.me/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Related terms

• blasphémateur
• blasphématoire
• blasphème

Further reading

• “blasphémer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.