pleuvoir

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French plovoir, from earlier pluveir, from Vulgar Latin *plovere (with a change in conjugation to *plovēre), from Classical Latin pluere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /plø.vwaʁ/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -waʁ

Verb

pleuvoir (impersonal)

1. to rain

Conjugation

This is a defective verb, only conjugated in the third-person. The third-person plural forms are only used figuratively.

Conjugation of pleuvoir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	pleuvoir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	pleuvant /plœ.vɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		plu /ply/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	—	—	pleut /plø/	—	—	pleuvent /plœv/
	imperfect	—	—	pleuvait /plœ.vɛ/	—	—	pleuvaient /plœ.vɛ/
	past historic2	—	—	plut /ply/	—	—	plurent /plyʁ/
	future	—	—	pleuvra /plœ.vʁa/	—	—	pleuvront /plœ.vʁɔ̃/
	conditional	—	—	pleuvrait /plœ.vʁɛ/	—	—	pleuvraient /plœ.vʁɛ/
(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	—	—	pleuve /plœv/	—	—	pleuvent /plœv/
	imperfect2	—	—	plût /ply/	—	—	plussent /plys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	—	—	—	—	—
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).

Rarely, the inflections pleus/pleux, pleuvons, and pleuvez are found.

Derived terms

• pleuvoir à boire debout
• pleuvoir à seaux
• pleuvoir à verse
• pleuvoir comme vache qui pisse
• pleuvoir des cordes
• pleuvoir des hallebardes

 

Related terms

• pluie
• pluvieux

Further reading

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