ratatiner

French

Etymology

Of onomatopoeic origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁa.ta.ti.ne/

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

ratatiner

1. (transitive, intransitive) to shrink, shrivel
2. (takes a reflexive pronoun) to shrivel (up)
3. (informal) to badly damage, wreck, to destroy
4. (slang) to kill
5. (slang) to soundly defeat; to cream

Conjugation

Conjugation of ratatiner (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	ratatiner
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	ratatinant /ʁa.ta.ti.nɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		ratatiné /ʁa.ta.ti.ne/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	ratatine /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatines /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatine /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatinons /ʁa.ta.ti.nɔ̃/	ratatinez /ʁa.ta.ti.ne/	ratatinent /ʁa.ta.tin/
	imperfect	ratatinais /ʁa.ta.ti.nɛ/	ratatinais /ʁa.ta.ti.nɛ/	ratatinait /ʁa.ta.ti.nɛ/	ratatinions /ʁa.ta.ti.njɔ̃/	ratatiniez /ʁa.ta.ti.nje/	ratatinaient /ʁa.ta.ti.nɛ/
	past historic2	ratatinai /ʁa.ta.ti.ne/	ratatinas /ʁa.ta.ti.na/	ratatina /ʁa.ta.ti.na/	ratatinâmes /ʁa.ta.ti.nam/	ratatinâtes /ʁa.ta.ti.nat/	ratatinèrent /ʁa.ta.ti.nɛʁ/
	future	ratatinerai /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁe/	ratatineras /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁa/	ratatinera /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁa/	ratatinerons /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁɔ̃/	ratatinerez /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁe/	ratatineront /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	ratatinerais /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁɛ/	ratatinerais /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁɛ/	ratatinerait /ʁa.ta.tin.ʁɛ/	ratatinerions /ʁa.ta.ti.nə.ʁjɔ̃/	ratatineriez /ʁa.ta.ti.nə.ʁje/	ratatineraient /ʁa.ta.tin.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	ratatine /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatines /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatine /ʁa.ta.tin/	ratatinions /ʁa.ta.ti.njɔ̃/	ratatiniez /ʁa.ta.ti.nje/	ratatinent /ʁa.ta.tin/
	imperfect2	ratatinasse /ʁa.ta.ti.nas/	ratatinasses /ʁa.ta.ti.nas/	ratatinât /ʁa.ta.ti.na/	ratatinassions /ʁa.ta.ti.na.sjɔ̃/	ratatinassiez /ʁa.ta.ti.na.sje/	ratatinassent /ʁa.ta.ti.nas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	ratatine /ʁa.ta.tin/	—	ratatinons /ʁa.ta.ti.nɔ̃/	ratatinez /ʁa.ta.ti.ne/	—
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

• ratatinage
• ratatinement

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• entartrai