craindre

French

Etymology

From Middle French, from Old French criembre, criendre (later creindre), from Classical Latin tremere, present active infinitive of tremō, from Proto-Indo-European *trem- (“to tremble”). Altered into a regional 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 the similar 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)

infinitive	simple	craindre
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	craignant /kʁɛ.ɲɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		craint /kʁɛ̃/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle	nous	vous	ils, elles
(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 historic2	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	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	craigne /kʁɛɲ/	craignes /kʁɛɲ/	craigne /kʁɛɲ/	craignions /kʁɛ.ɲjɔ̃/	craigniez /kʁɛ.ɲje/	craignent /kʁɛɲ/
	imperfect2	craignisse /kʁɛ.ɲis/	craignisses /kʁɛ.ɲis/	craignît /kʁɛ.ɲi/	craignissions /kʁɛ.ɲi.sjɔ̃/	craignissiez /kʁɛ.ɲi.sje/	craignissent /kʁɛ.ɲis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	crains /kʁɛ̃/	—	craignons /kʁɛ.ɲɔ̃/	craignez /kʁɛ.ɲe/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is only usable with preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, the past historic, past anterior, imperfect subjunctive and pluperfect subjunctive tenses may be found to have been replaced with the indicative present perfect, indicative pluperfect, present subjunctive and past subjunctive tenses respectively (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Synonyms

• avoir peur
• redouter

Derived terms

• chat échaudé craint l'eau froide

Related terms

• crainte
• trembler

Further reading

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