diriger

French[edit]

Borrowing and simplification of Latin dīrigō (“to direct”) into a first conjugation French verb.

diriger

(transitive) to run; to direct (be the director of)

Il dirige son entreprise avec passion.

He runs his business with passion.
to supervise; to oversee
to steer (vehicles)

Il sait bien diriger le bateau.

He knows how to steer the boat.
to aim, to direct

Dirigez vos armes à l'énnemi.

Aim your weapons at the enemy.
to direct (a film)
(reflexive, se diriger) To go towards; to head (for)

Le camion se dirige vers la falaise.

The truck is heading for the cliff.

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written dirige- before endings that begin with -a- or -o- (to indicate that the -g- is a “soft” /ʒ/ and not a “hard” /ɡ/). This spelling-change occurs in all verbs in -ger, such as neiger and manger.

Conjugation of diriger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

		simple			compound
infinitive		diriger			avoir dirigé
gerund		en dirigeant			en ayant dirigé
present participle		dirigeant
past participle		dirigé
person		singular			plural
person		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il	nous	vous	ils
simple tenses	present	dirige	diriges	dirige	dirigeons	dirigez	dirigent
	imperfect	dirigeais	dirigeais	dirigeait	dirigions	dirigiez	dirigeaient
	past historic¹	dirigeai	dirigeas	dirigea	dirigeâmes	dirigeâtes	dirigèrent
	future	dirigerai	dirigeras	dirigera	dirigerons	dirigerez	dirigeront
	conditional	dirigerais	dirigerais	dirigerait	dirigerions	dirigeriez	dirigeraient
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	dirige	diriges	dirige	dirigions	dirigiez	dirigent
simple tenses	imperfect¹	dirigeasse	dirigeasses	dirigeât	dirigeassions	dirigeassiez	dirigeassent
compound tenses	past	Use the present subjunctive of avoir followed by the past participle
compound tenses	pluperfect¹	Use the imperfect subjunctive of avoir followed by the past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
imperative		—	dirige	—	dirigeons	dirigez	—
¹literary tenses

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