contrebattre

French

Pronunciation

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Verb

contrebattre

1. to counter (especially to fire on enemy artillery positions)
2. to get back at, hit back

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 *contrebatt and *contrebatts, it has the forms contrebat and contrebats. This is strictly a spelling change; pronunciation-wise, the verb is conjugated exactly like vendre.

Conjugation of contrebattre (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	contrebattre
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	contrebattant /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		contrebattu /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ty/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	contrebats /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba/	contrebats /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba/	contrebat /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba/	contrebattons /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɔ̃/	contrebattez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.te/	contrebattent /kɔ̃.tʁə.bat/
	imperfect	contrebattais /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɛ/	contrebattais /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɛ/	contrebattait /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɛ/	contrebattions /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tjɔ̃/	contrebattiez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tje/	contrebattaient /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɛ/
	past historic2	contrebattis /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti/	contrebattis /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti/	contrebattit /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti/	contrebattîmes /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tim/	contrebattîtes /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tit/	contrebattirent /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tiʁ/
	future	contrebattrai /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁe/	contrebattras /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁa/	contrebattra /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁa/	contrebattrons /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁɔ̃/	contrebattrez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁe/	contrebattront /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	contrebattrais /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁɛ/	contrebattrais /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁɛ/	contrebattrait /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁɛ/	contrebattrions /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁi.jɔ̃/	contrebattriez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tʁi.je/	contrebattraient /kɔ̃.tʁə.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	contrebatte /kɔ̃.tʁə.bat/	contrebattes /kɔ̃.tʁə.bat/	contrebatte /kɔ̃.tʁə.bat/	contrebattions /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tjɔ̃/	contrebattiez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tje/	contrebattent /kɔ̃.tʁə.bat/
	imperfect2	contrebattisse /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tis/	contrebattisses /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tis/	contrebattît /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti/	contrebattissions /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti.sjɔ̃/	contrebattissiez /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.ti.sje/	contrebattissent /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	contrebats /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba/	—	contrebattons /kɔ̃.tʁə.ba.tɔ̃/	contrebattez /kɔ̃.tʁə.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).

Further reading

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