colmater

French

Etymology

From colmate (“land for filling”), from Italian colmata (“filled”), from Latin cumulāre, form of cumulō (“to heap, fill”); compare cumulus (“a heap”).

Cognate to Italian colmare; Spanish and Portuguese colmar.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔl.ma.te/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

colmater

1. (transitive) to fill in (a low land)
2. (transitive) to plug (a hole)
3. (reflexive) to fill up

Conjugation

Conjugation of colmater (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	colmater
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	colmatant /kɔl.ma.tɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		colmaté /kɔl.ma.te/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	colmate /kɔl.mat/	colmates /kɔl.mat/	colmate /kɔl.mat/	colmatons /kɔl.ma.tɔ̃/	colmatez /kɔl.ma.te/	colmatent /kɔl.mat/
	imperfect	colmatais /kɔl.ma.tɛ/	colmatais /kɔl.ma.tɛ/	colmatait /kɔl.ma.tɛ/	colmations /kɔl.ma.tjɔ̃/	colmatiez /kɔl.ma.tje/	colmataient /kɔl.ma.tɛ/
	past historic2	colmatai /kɔl.ma.te/	colmatas /kɔl.ma.ta/	colmata /kɔl.ma.ta/	colmatâmes /kɔl.ma.tam/	colmatâtes /kɔl.ma.tat/	colmatèrent /kɔl.ma.tɛʁ/
	future	colmaterai /kɔl.ma.tʁe/	colmateras /kɔl.ma.tʁa/	colmatera /kɔl.ma.tʁa/	colmaterons /kɔl.ma.tʁɔ̃/	colmaterez /kɔl.ma.tʁe/	colmateront /kɔl.ma.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	colmaterais /kɔl.ma.tʁɛ/	colmaterais /kɔl.ma.tʁɛ/	colmaterait /kɔl.ma.tʁɛ/	colmaterions /kɔl.ma.tə.ʁjɔ̃/	colmateriez /kɔl.ma.tə.ʁje/	colmateraient /kɔl.ma.tʁɛ/
(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	colmate /kɔl.mat/	colmates /kɔl.mat/	colmate /kɔl.mat/	colmations /kɔl.ma.tjɔ̃/	colmatiez /kɔl.ma.tje/	colmatent /kɔl.mat/
	imperfect2	colmatasse /kɔl.ma.tas/	colmatasses /kɔl.ma.tas/	colmatât /kɔl.ma.ta/	colmatassions /kɔl.ma.ta.sjɔ̃/	colmatassiez /kɔl.ma.ta.sje/	colmatassent /kɔl.ma.tas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	colmate /kɔl.mat/	—	colmatons /kɔl.ma.tɔ̃/	colmatez /kɔl.ma.te/	—
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

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