souiller

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French souiller, from Old French soillier, souillier (“to soil, make dirty, wallow in mire”), from Frankish *sulwijan (“to make dirty, soil”), from Proto-Germanic *sulwijaną, *saulijaną (“to soil, make dirty”), from Proto-Indo-European *sūl- (“thick liquid, mud”). Cognate with Old Saxon sulian (“to soil, mire”), Middle Dutch soluwen, seulewen (“to soil, besmirch”), Old High German solagōn, bisullen (“to make dirty”), German suhlen (“to soil, make dirty”), Old English solian, sylian (“to soil, sully”), Danish søle (“to make dirty, defile”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍃𐌰𐌿𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (bisauljan, “to bemire”). More at soil.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /su.je/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

souiller

1. (transitive) to soil, sully, dirty

   Synonym: salir

2. (transitive) to make unclean or impure; defile, profane
3. (figuratively, transitive) to blacken, besmirch, defile

Conjugation

Conjugation of souiller (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	souiller
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	souillant /su.jɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		souillé /su.je/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	souille /suj/	souilles /suj/	souille /suj/	souillons /su.jɔ̃/	souillez /su.je/	souillent /suj/
	imperfect	souillais /su.jɛ/	souillais /su.jɛ/	souillait /su.jɛ/	souillions /suj.jɔ̃/	souilliez /suj.je/	souillaient /su.jɛ/
	past historic2	souillai /su.je/	souillas /su.ja/	souilla /su.ja/	souillâmes /su.jam/	souillâtes /su.jat/	souillèrent /su.jɛʁ/
	future	souillerai /suj.ʁe/	souilleras /suj.ʁa/	souillera /suj.ʁa/	souillerons /suj.ʁɔ̃/	souillerez /suj.ʁe/	souilleront /suj.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	souillerais /suj.ʁɛ/	souillerais /suj.ʁɛ/	souillerait /suj.ʁɛ/	souillerions /su.jə.ʁjɔ̃/	souilleriez /su.jə.ʁje/	souilleraient /suj.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	souille /suj/	souilles /suj/	souille /suj/	souillions /suj.jɔ̃/	souilliez /suj.je/	souillent /suj/
	imperfect2	souillasse /su.jas/	souillasses /su.jas/	souillât /su.ja/	souillassions /su.ja.sjɔ̃/	souillassiez /su.ja.sje/	souillassent /su.jas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	souille /suj/	—	souillons /su.jɔ̃/	souillez /su.je/	—
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).

Derived terms

• souillure

 

Further reading

• “souiller” in Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1872–1877.
• “souiller”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Paronyms

• soulier

Anagrams

• rouilles, rouillés