alunir

French

FWOTD – 3 August 2025

Alternative forms

• allunir (less common)

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd

Proto-Italic *ad

Proto-Italic *ad-

Latin ad-

Old French a-

French a-

Proto-Indo-European *lewk-

Proto-Indo-European *-sneh₂

Proto-Indo-European *lówksneh₂

Proto-Italic *louksnā

Latin lūna

Old French lune

Middle French lune

French lune

Proto-Italic *-jezi

▲

Latin -ereinflu.

Latin -īre

French -ir

French alunir

From a- +‎ lune +‎ -ir, by analogy with atterrir and amerrir. Compare Italian allunare, Portuguese alunar, alunissar, Romanian aluniza, and Spanish alunizar.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ly.niʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iʁ

Verb

alunir (intransitive)

1. to land on the Moon [from 1921]
   • 1921, Charles Nordmann, chapter 5, in Einstein et l'univers‎^[1], Paris: Hachette, archived from the original on 3 May 2024, 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.

   • 2025 March 6, “Envoyée vers la Lune, une sonde privée américaine manque son alunissage”, in Ouest-France‎^[2], archived from the original on 7 April 2025:

     Le patron de l’entreprise américaine Intuitive Machines a annoncé ce jeudi 6 mars 2025 que la sonde nommée Athena a probablement échoué à alunir près du pôle sud de la Lune.

     The head of the American company Intuitive Machines announced this Thursday, March 6, 2025, that the probe named Athena likely failed to land near the Moon's south pole.

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
• alunisseur

Further reading

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