cornaquer

French

Etymology

From cornac (“elephant driver, guide”), borrowed from Portuguese cornaca, from Sinhalese කූරුව-නායක (kūruwa-nāyaka, “elephant trainer”), from කූරුව (kūruwa, “elephant department”) + Sanskrit नायक (nāyaka, “guide, leader”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔʁ.na.ke/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

cornaquer

1. to guide, to serve as a guide
   • 2021 April 15, “En Provence, voler demeure un rêve d'enfants”, in La Provence, →ISSN, page 1:

     Les aéronefs légers se succédaient à toute vitesse, cornaqués par radio par la tour de contrôle, ils partaient voler au-dessus de la Sainte Victoire, des calanques, mettaient le cap sur la Corse ou les Hautes-Alpes.

     Light aircraft followed each other at full speed, guided by radio from the control tower, they left to fly over Sainte Victoire, creeks, they set course for Corsica or the Hautes-Alpes.

Conjugation

Conjugation of cornaquer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	cornaquer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	cornaquant /kɔʁ.na.kɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		cornaqué /kɔʁ.na.ke/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	cornaque /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaques /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaque /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaquons /kɔʁ.na.kɔ̃/	cornaquez /kɔʁ.na.ke/	cornaquent /kɔʁ.nak/
	imperfect	cornaquais /kɔʁ.na.kɛ/	cornaquais /kɔʁ.na.kɛ/	cornaquait /kɔʁ.na.kɛ/	cornaquions /kɔʁ.na.kjɔ̃/	cornaquiez /kɔʁ.na.kje/	cornaquaient /kɔʁ.na.kɛ/
	past historic2	cornaquai /kɔʁ.na.ke/	cornaquas /kɔʁ.na.ka/	cornaqua /kɔʁ.na.ka/	cornaquâmes /kɔʁ.na.kam/	cornaquâtes /kɔʁ.na.kat/	cornaquèrent /kɔʁ.na.kɛʁ/
	future	cornaquerai /kɔʁ.na.kʁe/	cornaqueras /kɔʁ.na.kʁa/	cornaquera /kɔʁ.na.kʁa/	cornaquerons /kɔʁ.na.kʁɔ̃/	cornaquerez /kɔʁ.na.kʁe/	cornaqueront /kɔʁ.na.kʁɔ̃/
	conditional	cornaquerais /kɔʁ.na.kʁɛ/	cornaquerais /kɔʁ.na.kʁɛ/	cornaquerait /kɔʁ.na.kʁɛ/	cornaquerions /kɔʁ.na.kə.ʁjɔ̃/	cornaqueriez /kɔʁ.na.kə.ʁje/	cornaqueraient /kɔʁ.na.kʁɛ/
(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	cornaque /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaques /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaque /kɔʁ.nak/	cornaquions /kɔʁ.na.kjɔ̃/	cornaquiez /kɔʁ.na.kje/	cornaquent /kɔʁ.nak/
	imperfect2	cornaquasse /kɔʁ.na.kas/	cornaquasses /kɔʁ.na.kas/	cornaquât /kɔʁ.na.ka/	cornaquassions /kɔʁ.na.ka.sjɔ̃/	cornaquassiez /kɔʁ.na.ka.sje/	cornaquassent /kɔʁ.na.kas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	cornaque /kɔʁ.nak/	—	cornaquons /kɔʁ.na.kɔ̃/	cornaquez /kɔʁ.na.ke/	—
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

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