abattre

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French abbatre, from Old French abatre, from Late Latin abbattere, from Latin battere.

Cognate with Catalan abatre, Corsican abbatta, abbatte, Galician abater, Italian abbattere, Occitan abatre, Portuguese abater, Romanian abate, Sardinian abbàttiri, Sicilian abbàttiri, Spanish abatir.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.batʁ/

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Verb

abattre

1. to butcher; to slaughter for meat
2. to shoot dead
3. to cut down (a tree)
4. to destroy or demolish (a wall)
5. (reflexive) to fall down, especially of tall things, such as trees
6. (pronominal) to descend upon with violence or furor
   • 2021 December 16, Cécile Ducourtieux, “Au Royaume-Uni, la progression d’Omicron est « stupéfiante, jamais observée jusqu’à présent »”, in Le Monde‎^[1]:

     « Fulgurante », « phénoménale » ou « stupéfiante » : les conseillers scientifiques du gouvernement britannique n’ont pas de mots assez forts pour qualifier la vague Omicron qui s’abat sur le Royaume-Uni.

     "Striking", "phenomenal", or "stupefying": the scientific advisers to the British government do not have words strong enough to describe the Omicron wave which descending upon the United Kingdom.

7. (pronominal, of lightning) to strike

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like battre. That means it is conjugated like vendre, perdre, etc. (sometimes called the regular -re verbs), except that instead of *abatt and *abatts, it has the forms abat and abats. This is strictly a spelling change; pronunciation-wise, the verb is conjugated exactly like vendre.

Conjugation of abattre (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	abattre
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	abattant /a.ba.tɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		abattu /a.ba.ty/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	abats /a.ba/	abats /a.ba/	abat /a.ba/	abattons /a.ba.tɔ̃/	abattez /a.ba.te/	abattent /a.bat/
	imperfect	abattais /a.ba.tɛ/	abattais /a.ba.tɛ/	abattait /a.ba.tɛ/	abattions /a.ba.tjɔ̃/	abattiez /a.ba.tje/	abattaient /a.ba.tɛ/
	past historic2	abattis /a.ba.ti/	abattis /a.ba.ti/	abattit /a.ba.ti/	abattîmes /a.ba.tim/	abattîtes /a.ba.tit/	abattirent /a.ba.tiʁ/
	future	abattrai /a.ba.tʁe/	abattras /a.ba.tʁa/	abattra /a.ba.tʁa/	abattrons /a.ba.tʁɔ̃/	abattrez /a.ba.tʁe/	abattront /a.ba.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	abattrais /a.ba.tʁɛ/	abattrais /a.ba.tʁɛ/	abattrait /a.ba.tʁɛ/	abattrions /a.ba.tʁi.jɔ̃/	abattriez /a.ba.tʁi.je/	abattraient /a.ba.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	abatte /a.bat/	abattes /a.bat/	abatte /a.bat/	abattions /a.ba.tjɔ̃/	abattiez /a.ba.tje/	abattent /a.bat/
	imperfect2	abattisse /a.ba.tis/	abattisses /a.ba.tis/	abattît /a.ba.ti/	abattissions /a.ba.ti.sjɔ̃/	abattissiez /a.ba.ti.sje/	abattissent /a.ba.tis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	abats /a.ba/	—	abattons /a.ba.tɔ̃/	abattez /a.ba.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).

Derived terms

• à bride abattue
• abat-jour
• abattable
• abattis
• abattoir
• abattre son jeu
• abattu
• petite pluie abat grand vent

Related terms

• battre

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• baratte, ébattra, rabatte

Norman

Alternative forms

• abat

Etymology

From Old French abatre, from Late Latin abbattere, from Latin battere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.batr/

Verb

abattre

1. (Jersey) to knock down

References

• Spence, N.C.W. (1960). Glossary of Jersey-French. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 39.