limoger

French

Etymology

From Limoges +‎ -er. From the town of Limoges, which was far away from the World War I front and where General Joseph Joffre, Commander-in-Chief of the French forces from 1914 to 1916, consequently sent senior staff whom he considered useless and had relieved from actual command. Attested since 1916.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /li.mɔ.ʒe/

• Audio (Lyon, France)

  (file)

Verb

limoger

1. (transitive) to dismiss (usually of senior staff, such as a minister, general, bishop, ambassador, etc), kick upstairs
   • 1927, Marcel Proust, Le Temps retrouvé [Time Regained] (À la recherche du temps perdu)‎^[1]:

     M^me Verdurin disait : « C’est désolant, je vais téléphoner à Bontemps de faire le nécessaire pour demain, on a encore « caviardé » toute la fin de l’article de Norpois et simplement parce qu’il laissait entendre qu’on avait « limogé » Percin. »

     Mme Verdurin said, “It is deplorable, I shall telephone to Bontemps to do what is necessary to-morrow. They have again ‘censored’ the whole end of Norpois' article simply because he let it be understood that they had ‘dismissed’ Percin.”

     translated by Stephen Hudson

   • 2021 June 30, “Corée du Nord : plusieurs hauts responsables limogés après un «grave incident» lié au Covid-19 [North Korea: several senior officials sacked after a "serious incident" linked to Covid-19]”, in Le Figaro‎^[2]:

     Le dirigeant nord-coréen Kim Jong Un a limogé plusieurs hauts responsables du pays en raison d’un «grave incident» lié à la lutte contre la pandémie de Covid-19, a annoncé mercredi 30 juin l’agence officielle KCNA.

     The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sacked several senior officials of the country because of a "serious incident" linked to the struggle against the Covid-19 pandemic, reported the official agency KCNA on Wednesday 30 June.

Conjugation

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written limoge- before endings that begin with -a- or -o- (to indicate that the -g- is a "soft" /ʒ/ and not a "hard" /ɡ/). This spelling-change occurs in all verbs in -ger, such as neiger and manger.

Conjugation of limoger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	limoger
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	limogeant /li.mɔ.ʒɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		limogé /li.mɔ.ʒe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	limoge /li.mɔʒ/	limoges /li.mɔʒ/	limoge /li.mɔʒ/	limogeons /li.mɔ.ʒɔ̃/	limogez /li.mɔ.ʒe/	limogent /li.mɔʒ/
	imperfect	limogeais /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/	limogeais /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/	limogeait /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/	limogions /li.mɔ.ʒjɔ̃/	limogiez /li.mɔ.ʒje/	limogeaient /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/
	past historic2	limogeai /li.mɔ.ʒe/	limogeas /li.mɔ.ʒa/	limogea /li.mɔ.ʒa/	limogeâmes /li.mɔ.ʒam/	limogeâtes /li.mɔ.ʒat/	limogèrent /li.mɔ.ʒɛʁ/
	future	limogerai /li.mɔʒ.ʁe/	limogeras /li.mɔʒ.ʁa/	limogera /li.mɔʒ.ʁa/	limogerons /li.mɔʒ.ʁɔ̃/	limogerez /li.mɔʒ.ʁe/	limogeront /li.mɔʒ.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	limogerais /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/	limogerais /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/	limogerait /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/	limogerions /li.mɔ.ʒə.ʁjɔ̃/	limogeriez /li.mɔ.ʒə.ʁje/	limogeraient /li.mɔʒ.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	limoge /li.mɔʒ/	limoges /li.mɔʒ/	limoge /li.mɔʒ/	limogions /li.mɔ.ʒjɔ̃/	limogiez /li.mɔ.ʒje/	limogent /li.mɔʒ/
	imperfect2	limogeasse /li.mɔ.ʒas/	limogeasses /li.mɔ.ʒas/	limogeât /li.mɔ.ʒa/	limogeassions /li.mɔ.ʒa.sjɔ̃/	limogeassiez /li.mɔ.ʒa.sje/	limogeassent /li.mɔ.ʒas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	limoge /li.mɔʒ/	—	limogeons /li.mɔ.ʒɔ̃/	limogez /li.mɔ.ʒe/	—
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).

Further reading

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