pétrir

French

Etymology

From Late Latin or Vulgar Latin *pistrīre, *pistriō, a derivative of Latin pistor (“baker”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pe.tʁiʁ/

• audio:

  (file)

Verb

pétrir

1. to knead
2. to mould into shape

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 pétrir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	pétrir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	pétrissant /pe.tʁi.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		pétri /pe.tʁi/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	pétris /pe.tʁi/	pétris /pe.tʁi/	pétrit /pe.tʁi/	pétrissons /pe.tʁi.sɔ̃/	pétrissez /pe.tʁi.se/	pétrissent /pe.tʁis/
	imperfect	pétrissais /pe.tʁi.sɛ/	pétrissais /pe.tʁi.sɛ/	pétrissait /pe.tʁi.sɛ/	pétrissions /pe.tʁi.sjɔ̃/	pétrissiez /pe.tʁi.sje/	pétrissaient /pe.tʁi.sɛ/
	past historic2	pétris /pe.tʁi/	pétris /pe.tʁi/	pétrit /pe.tʁi/	pétrîmes /pe.tʁim/	pétrîtes /pe.tʁit/	pétrirent /pe.tʁiʁ/
	future	pétrirai /pe.tʁi.ʁe/	pétriras /pe.tʁi.ʁa/	pétrira /pe.tʁi.ʁa/	pétrirons /pe.tʁi.ʁɔ̃/	pétrirez /pe.tʁi.ʁe/	pétriront /pe.tʁi.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	pétrirais /pe.tʁi.ʁɛ/	pétrirais /pe.tʁi.ʁɛ/	pétrirait /pe.tʁi.ʁɛ/	pétririons /pe.tʁi.ʁjɔ̃/	pétririez /pe.tʁi.ʁje/	pétriraient /pe.tʁi.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	pétrisse /pe.tʁis/	pétrisses /pe.tʁis/	pétrisse /pe.tʁis/	pétrissions /pe.tʁi.sjɔ̃/	pétrissiez /pe.tʁi.sje/	pétrissent /pe.tʁis/
	imperfect2	pétrisse /pe.tʁis/	pétrisses /pe.tʁis/	pétrît /pe.tʁi/	pétrissions /pe.tʁi.sjɔ̃/	pétrissiez /pe.tʁi.sje/	pétrissent /pe.tʁis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	pétris /pe.tʁi/	—	pétrissons /pe.tʁi.sɔ̃/	pétrissez /pe.tʁi.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

• pétri
• pétrissable
• pétrissure

Related terms

• pétrin

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• reprit, reprît