craindre

French

Etymology

From Middle French < Old French criembre, criendre (later creindre), from Classical Latin tremere, present active infinitive of tremō, altered into a Gallo-Romance Vulgar Latin form *cremere, with the initial c- under the influence of the Celtic root *krit- (Breton kridien, Scottish Gaelic crith), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *krey-. Compare Occitan crénher.

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /kʁɛ̃dʁ/

Verb

craindre

1. (transitive) to fear
2. (intransitive, slang) to suck (to be unwanted or bad)

   J'ai perdu mon portefeuille. — Merde, ça craint.

   • I've lost my wallet. — Shit, that sucks.

Usage notes

• craindre que is followed by a subjunctive, and in addition takes a ne as a meaningless particle, e.g. in the following sentence:
• Je crains que le lac ne soit froid.
  • I fear that the lake is cold.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like peindre. It uses the same endings as rendre or vendre, but its -nd- becomes -gn- before a vowel, and its past participle ends in ‘t’ instead of a vowel.

  Conjugation of craindre (see also Appendix:French verbs)

		simple			compound
infinitive		craindre			avoir craint
gerund		en craignant			en ayant craint
present participle		craignant /kʁɛ.ɲɑ̃/
past participle		craint /kʁɛ̃/
person		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il	nous	vous	ils
simple tenses	present	crains /kʁɛ̃/	crains /kʁɛ̃/	craint /kʁɛ̃/	craignons /kʁɛ.ɲɔ̃/	craignez /kʁɛ.ɲe/	craignent /kʁɛɲ/
	imperfect	craignais /kʁɛ.ɲɛ/	craignais /kʁɛ.ɲɛ/	craignait /kʁɛ.ɲɛ/	craignions /kʁɛ.ɲjɔ̃/	craigniez /kʁɛ.ɲje/	craignaient /kʁɛ.ɲɛ/
	past historic1	craignis /kʁɛ.ɲi/	craignis /kʁɛ.ɲi/	craignit /kʁɛ.ɲi/	craignîmes /kʁɛ.ɲim/	craignîtes /kʁɛ.ɲit/	craignirent /kʁɛ.ɲiʁ/
	future	craindrai /kʁɛ̃.dʁe/	craindras /kʁɛ̃.dʁa/	craindra /kʁɛ̃.dʁa/	craindrons /kʁɛ̃.dʁɔ̃/	craindrez /kʁɛ̃.dʁe/	craindront /kʁɛ̃.dʁɔ̃/
	conditional	craindrais /kʁɛ̃.dʁɛ/	craindrais /kʁɛ̃.dʁɛ/	craindrait /kʁɛ̃.dʁɛ/	craindrions /kʁɛ̃.dʁi.jɔ̃/	craindriez /kʁɛ̃.dʁi.je/	craindraient /kʁɛ̃.dʁɛ/
compound tenses	present perfect	Use the present tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	pluperfect	Use the imperfect tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	past anterior1	Use the past historic tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	future perfect	Use the future tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	conditional perfect	Use the conditional tense of avoir followed by the past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il	que nous	que vous	qu’ils
simple tenses	present	craigne /kʁɛɲ/	craignes /kʁɛɲ/	craigne /kʁɛɲ/	craignions /kʁɛ.ɲjɔ̃/	craigniez /kʁɛ.ɲje/	craignent /kʁɛɲ/
	imperfect1	craignisse /kʁɛ.ɲis/	craignisses /kʁɛ.ɲis/	craignît /kʁɛ.ɲi/	craignissions /kʁɛ.ɲi.sjɔ̃/	craignissiez /kʁɛ.ɲi.sje/	craignissent /kʁɛ.ɲis/
compound tenses	past	Use the present subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
	pluperfect1	Use the imperfect subjunctive tense of avoir followed by the past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
		—	crains /kʁɛ̃/	—	craignons /kʁɛ.ɲɔ̃/	craignez /kʁɛ.ɲe/	—
1literary tenses

Synonyms

• avoir peur
• redouter

Derived terms

• chat échaudé craint l'eau froide

Related terms

• crainte

Further reading

• “craindre” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).