ternir

French

Etymology

From Middle French ternir, from Old French ternir (“to make dim, make wan”), from Frankish *tarnijan (“to cover up, conceal, hide”), from Proto-Germanic *darnijaną (“to conceal”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer-, *dʰrē- (“to hold, hold tight, support”). Cognate with Old High German *tarnjan, tarnen (“to hide, cover up, conceal”) (German tarnen), Old English dyrnan, diernan (“to keep secret, conceal, hide, restrain, repress”). More at dern, darn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɛʁ.niʁ/

Verb

ternir

1. to tarnish (metal), fade (material)
2. to tarnish (reputation etc.)

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 ternir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	ternir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	ternissant /tɛʁ.ni.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		terni /tɛʁ.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	ternis /tɛʁ.ni/	ternis /tɛʁ.ni/	ternit /tɛʁ.ni/	ternissons /tɛʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	ternissez /tɛʁ.ni.se/	ternissent /tɛʁ.nis/
	imperfect	ternissais /tɛʁ.ni.sɛ/	ternissais /tɛʁ.ni.sɛ/	ternissait /tɛʁ.ni.sɛ/	ternissions /tɛʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	ternissiez /tɛʁ.ni.sje/	ternissaient /tɛʁ.ni.sɛ/
	past historic2	ternis /tɛʁ.ni/	ternis /tɛʁ.ni/	ternit /tɛʁ.ni/	ternîmes /tɛʁ.nim/	ternîtes /tɛʁ.nit/	ternirent /tɛʁ.niʁ/
	future	ternirai /tɛʁ.ni.ʁe/	terniras /tɛʁ.ni.ʁa/	ternira /tɛʁ.ni.ʁa/	ternirons /tɛʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/	ternirez /tɛʁ.ni.ʁe/	terniront /tɛʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	ternirais /tɛʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	ternirais /tɛʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	ternirait /tɛʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	ternirions /tɛʁ.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	terniriez /tɛʁ.ni.ʁje/	terniraient /tɛʁ.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	ternisse /tɛʁ.nis/	ternisses /tɛʁ.nis/	ternisse /tɛʁ.nis/	ternissions /tɛʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	ternissiez /tɛʁ.ni.sje/	ternissent /tɛʁ.nis/
	imperfect2	ternisse /tɛʁ.nis/	ternisses /tɛʁ.nis/	ternît /tɛʁ.ni/	ternissions /tɛʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	ternissiez /tɛʁ.ni.sje/	ternissent /tɛʁ.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	ternis /tɛʁ.ni/	—	ternissons /tɛʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	ternissez /tɛʁ.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).

Related terms

• terne

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• nitrer, rirent