alunir

French

Etymology

By analogy with atterrir and amerrir, from a- +‎ lune +‎ -ir, attested from 1921.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ly.niʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iʁ

Verb

alunir

1. (intransitive) to land on the Moon
   • 1921, Charles Nordmann, chapter 5, in Einstein et l'univers‎^[1], Paris: Hachette, page 127:

     Considérons donc le projectile lorsqu’il commence à tomber librement vers la Lune. Il est évident qu’à partir de cet instant et jusqu’à ce qu’il ait atterri ou plutôt aluni…, il se comportera exactement comme notre ascenseur—je devrais dire notre descenseur—de tout à l’heure.

     Let us thus consider the projectile once it begins to fall freely towards the Moon. It is evident from that moment until the moment it lands on the Earth or rather lands on the Moon…, it behaves exactly like our elevator—I should say our descender—from earlier.

Conjugation

This is a regular verb of the second conjugation, like finir, choisir, and most other verbs with infinitives ending in -ir. One salient feature of this conjugation is the repeated appearance of the infix -iss-.

Conjugation of alunir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	alunir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	alunissant /a.ly.ni.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		aluni /a.ly.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	alunis /a.ly.ni/	alunis /a.ly.ni/	alunit /a.ly.ni/	alunissons /a.ly.ni.sɔ̃/	alunissez /a.ly.ni.se/	alunissent /a.ly.nis/
	imperfect	alunissais /a.ly.ni.sɛ/	alunissais /a.ly.ni.sɛ/	alunissait /a.ly.ni.sɛ/	alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/	alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/	alunissaient /a.ly.ni.sɛ/
	past historic2	alunis /a.ly.ni/	alunis /a.ly.ni/	alunit /a.ly.ni/	alunîmes /a.ly.nim/	alunîtes /a.ly.nit/	alunirent /a.ly.niʁ/
	future	alunirai /a.ly.ni.ʁe/	aluniras /a.ly.ni.ʁa/	alunira /a.ly.ni.ʁa/	alunirons /a.ly.ni.ʁɔ̃/	alunirez /a.ly.ni.ʁe/	aluniront /a.ly.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	alunirais /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/	alunirais /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/	alunirait /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/	alunirions /a.ly.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	aluniriez /a.ly.ni.ʁje/	aluniraient /a.ly.ni.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	alunisse /a.ly.nis/	alunisses /a.ly.nis/	alunisse /a.ly.nis/	alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/	alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/	alunissent /a.ly.nis/
	imperfect2	alunisse /a.ly.nis/	alunisses /a.ly.nis/	alunît /a.ly.ni/	alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/	alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/	alunissent /a.ly.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	alunis /a.ly.ni/	—	alunissons /a.ly.ni.sɔ̃/	alunissez /a.ly.ni.se/	—
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

• alunissage

Further reading

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