fournir

French

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French furnir, fornir (whence also English furnish), of (deprecated template usage) [etyl]  origin, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Frankish *frumjan (“to complete, execute”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *frumjaną (“to further, promote”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Indo-European *promo- (“front, forward”). Cf. Old High German frumjan (“to perform, provide”), from fruma (“utility, gain”), akin to Old English fremu (“profit, advantage”), fremian (“to promote, perform”). Compare Catalan fornir, Italian fornire, English furnish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fuʁ.niʁ/

• audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iʁ

Verb

fournir

1. to supply, to provide, to furnish

   La boulangerie fournit mon restaurant en pain.

   The bakery supplies my restaurant with bread.

2. to put in

   Fournir de l'effort.

   Put in some effort.

3. (card games) to follow suit
4. (slang) To poke, to shaft, to hump; to have sex

   J'ai fourni ta mère.

   I shafted your mother.

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 fournir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	fournir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	fournissant /fuʁ.ni.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		fourni /fuʁ.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournit /fuʁ.ni/	fournissons /fuʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	fournissez /fuʁ.ni.se/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
	imperfect	fournissais /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissais /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissait /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissaient /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/
	past historic2	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournit /fuʁ.ni/	fournîmes /fuʁ.nim/	fournîtes /fuʁ.nit/	fournirent /fuʁ.niʁ/
	future	fournirai /fuʁ.ni.ʁe/	fourniras /fuʁ.ni.ʁa/	fournira /fuʁ.ni.ʁa/	fournirons /fuʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/	fournirez /fuʁ.ni.ʁe/	fourniront /fuʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	fournirais /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirais /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirait /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirions /fuʁ.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	fourniriez /fuʁ.ni.ʁje/	fourniraient /fuʁ.ni.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	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournisses /fuʁ.nis/	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
	imperfect2	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournisses /fuʁ.nis/	fournît /fuʁ.ni/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	—	fournissons /fuʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	fournissez /fuʁ.ni.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, 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).

Derived terms

• fournisseur
• fourniture

Further reading

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