neiger

French

Etymology

From Middle French, from Old French negier, from Vulgar Latin *nivicāre, present active infinitive of *nivicō, from *nivō, from Latin nix. Compare Italian nevicare.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nɛ.ʒe/ ~ /ne.ʒe/, /ne.ʒe/

• audio:

  (file)

Verb

neiger (impersonal)

1. (impersonal) to snow

   Il neigeait.

   It was snowing.

Conjugation

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written neige- 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 bouger and manger. This verb is impersonal and is conjugated only in the third-person singular.

Conjugation of neiger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	neiger
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	neigeant /nɛ.ʒɑ̃/ or /ne.ʒɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		neigé /nɛ.ʒe/ or /ne.ʒe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	—	—	neige /nɛʒ/	—	—	—
	imperfect	—	—	neigeait /nɛ.ʒɛ/ or /ne.ʒɛ/	—	—	—
	past historic2	—	—	neigea /nɛ.ʒa/ or /ne.ʒa/	—	—	—
	future	—	—	neigera /nɛʒ.ʁa/	—	—	—
	conditional	—	—	neigerait /nɛʒ.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	—	—	neige /nɛʒ/	—	—	—
	imperfect2	—	—	neigeât /nɛ.ʒa/ or /ne.ʒa/	—	—	—
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	—	—	—	—	—
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

• neige

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• ingère, ingéré, Régine