fleurir

French

Etymology

From Old French florir, from Vulgar Latin *florīre, (with conjugation influenced by Latin flōrēscere, present active infinitive of flōrēscō), from flōreō. The expected outcome from Old French florir would be flourir but this latter was influenced by fleur (“flower”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flœ.ʁiʁ/

• Audio

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Verb

fleurir

1. to flower; to produce flowers
2. to bloom
3. to flourish

Conjugation

This is a regular verb of the second conjugation, like finir, choisir, and most other verbs with infinitives ending in -ir. One salient feature of this conjugation is the repeated appearance of the infix -iss-.

Conjugation of fleurir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	fleurir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	fleurissant /flœ.ʁi.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		fleuri /flœ.ʁi/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	fleuris /flœ.ʁi/	fleuris /flœ.ʁi/	fleurit /flœ.ʁi/	fleurissons /flœ.ʁi.sɔ̃/	fleurissez /flœ.ʁi.se/	fleurissent /flœ.ʁis/
	imperfect	fleurissais /flœ.ʁi.sɛ/	fleurissais /flœ.ʁi.sɛ/	fleurissait /flœ.ʁi.sɛ/	fleurissions /flœ.ʁi.sjɔ̃/	fleurissiez /flœ.ʁi.sje/	fleurissaient /flœ.ʁi.sɛ/
	past historic2	fleuris /flœ.ʁi/	fleuris /flœ.ʁi/	fleurit /flœ.ʁi/	fleurîmes /flœ.ʁim/	fleurîtes /flœ.ʁit/	fleurirent /flœ.ʁiʁ/
	future	fleurirai /flœ.ʁi.ʁe/	fleuriras /flœ.ʁi.ʁa/	fleurira /flœ.ʁi.ʁa/	fleurirons /flœ.ʁi.ʁɔ̃/	fleurirez /flœ.ʁi.ʁe/	fleuriront /flœ.ʁi.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	fleurirais /flœ.ʁi.ʁɛ/	fleurirais /flœ.ʁi.ʁɛ/	fleurirait /flœ.ʁi.ʁɛ/	fleuririons /flœ.ʁi.ʁjɔ̃/	fleuririez /flœ.ʁi.ʁje/	fleuriraient /flœ.ʁi.ʁɛ/
(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	fleurisse /flœ.ʁis/	fleurisses /flœ.ʁis/	fleurisse /flœ.ʁis/	fleurissions /flœ.ʁi.sjɔ̃/	fleurissiez /flœ.ʁi.sje/	fleurissent /flœ.ʁis/
	imperfect2	fleurisse /flœ.ʁis/	fleurisses /flœ.ʁis/	fleurît /flœ.ʁi/	fleurissions /flœ.ʁi.sjɔ̃/	fleurissiez /flœ.ʁi.sje/	fleurissent /flœ.ʁis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	fleuris /flœ.ʁi/	—	fleurissons /flœ.ʁi.sɔ̃/	fleurissez /flœ.ʁi.se/	—
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, 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).

Derived terms

• défleurir
• fleurissement
• refleurir

 

Further reading

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