attraire

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French atraire, atreire, from Vulgar Latin *attragere, from Latin attrahō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.tʁɛʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

attraire

1. (obsolete) to attract (be attractive)
2. (obsolete, law) to sue

Conjugation

This verb traditionally has no past historic or imperfect subjunctive. They would be formed on a -attray- root: *je attrayis, *que nous attrayissions etc. Forms using the 'a' endings of verbs in -er are now used when there is an unavoidable need to use these forms. The root -attrais- was used instead of -attray- in the 18th century, and remains in Swiss and Savoy dialects.

Conjugation of attraire (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	attraire
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	attrayant /a.tʁɛ.jɑ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		attrait /a.tʁɛ/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	attrait /a.tʁɛ/	attrayons /a.tʁɛ.jɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɔ̃/	attrayez /a.tʁɛ.je/ or /a.tʁe.je/	attraient /a.tʁɛ/
	imperfect	attrayais /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayais /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayait /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayions /a.tʁɛj.jɔ̃/	attrayiez /a.tʁɛj.je/	attrayaient /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/
	past historic2	attrayai /a.tʁɛe/	attrayas /a.tʁɛa/	attraya /a.tʁɛa/	attrayâmes /a.tʁɛam/	attrayâtes /a.tʁɛat/	attrayèrent /a.tʁɛɛʁ/
	future	attrairai /a.tʁɛ.ʁe/ or /a.tʁe.ʁe/	attrairas /a.tʁɛ.ʁa/ or /a.tʁe.ʁa/	attraira /a.tʁɛ.ʁa/ or /a.tʁe.ʁa/	attrairons /a.tʁɛ.ʁɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɔ̃/	attrairez /a.tʁɛ.ʁe/ or /a.tʁe.ʁe/	attrairont /a.tʁɛ.ʁɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	attrairais /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairais /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairait /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairions /a.tʁɛ.ʁjɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁjɔ̃/	attrairiez /a.tʁɛ.ʁje/ or /a.tʁe.ʁje/	attrairaient /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.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	attraie /a.tʁɛ/	attraies /a.tʁɛ/	attraie /a.tʁɛ/	attrayions /a.tʁɛj.jɔ̃/	attrayiez /a.tʁɛj.je/	attraient /a.tʁɛ/
	imperfect2	attrayasse /a.tʁɛas/	attrayasses /a.tʁɛas/	attrayât /a.tʁɛa/	attrayassions /a.tʁɛa.sjɔ̃/	attrayassiez /a.tʁɛa.sje/	attrayassent /a.tʁɛas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	—	attrayons /a.tʁɛ.jɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɔ̃/	attrayez /a.tʁɛ.je/ or /a.tʁe.je/	—
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

• attrayable
• attrayant

Further reading

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