vouloir

French

Etymology

From Old French voloir, voleir, from Vulgar Latin *volēre, present active infinitive of *voleō, from Classical Latin volō, velle, from Proto-Italic *welō, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vu.lwaʁ/

• audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -waʁ

Verb

vouloir

1. (transitive) to want, wish, desire
2. (reflexive) to see oneself as; to give the impression of, to seem

Usage notes

• The second-person singular and plural imperatives have alternate forms: veuille and veuillez, which have slight differences in usage. See individual articles for details.

Conjugation

Conjugation of vouloir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	vouloir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	voulant /vu.lɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		voulu /vu.ly/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	veux /vø/	veux /vø/	veut /vø/	voulons /vu.lɔ̃/	voulez /vu.le/	veulent /vœl/
	imperfect	voulais /vu.lɛ/	voulais /vu.lɛ/	voulait /vu.lɛ/	voulions /vu.ljɔ̃/	vouliez /vu.lje/	voulaient /vu.lɛ/
	past historic2	voulus /vu.ly/	voulus /vu.ly/	voulut /vu.ly/	voulûmes /vu.lym/	voulûtes /vu.lyt/	voulurent /vu.lyʁ/
	future	voudrai /vu.dʁe/	voudras /vu.dʁa/	voudra /vu.dʁa/	voudrons /vu.dʁɔ̃/	voudrez /vu.dʁe/	voudront /vu.dʁɔ̃/
	conditional	voudrais /vu.dʁɛ/	voudrais /vu.dʁɛ/	voudrait /vu.dʁɛ/	voudrions /vu.dʁi.jɔ̃/	voudriez /vu.dʁi.je/	voudraient /vu.dʁɛ/
(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	veuille /vœj/	veuilles /vœj/	veuille /vœj/	voulions /vu.ljɔ̃/	vouliez /vu.lje/	veuillent /vœj/
	imperfect2	voulusse /vu.lys/	voulusses /vu.lys/	voulût /vu.ly/	voulussions /vu.ly.sjɔ̃/	voulussiez /vu.ly.sje/	voulussent /vu.lys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	veux or veuille /vø/ or /vœj/	—	voulons or veuillons /vu.lɔ̃/ or /vœ.jɔ̃/	voulez or veuillez /vu.le/ or /vœ.je/	—
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

• en vouloir
• vouloir dire

Noun

vouloir m (plural vouloirs)

1. will

Further reading

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