boire

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French boire, from Old French boivre, beivre, from Latin bibere, from Proto-Italic *pibō, from Proto-Indo-European *píph₃eti.

More details on conjugation

The stressed past historic stems (1st singular, 3rd singular and 3rd plural) are from Vulgar Latin perfect stem *būb- (historic Old French bui), while the unstressed past historic (remaining past historic tenses), subjunctive imperfect, and past participle endings changed from -i- to -ū- (*bibūstus → Old French beüs, *bibūtum → Old French beü). The paradigms above later merged with each other, but bui is replaced by Middle French bus with an analogous -s.

The imperfect, 1st and 2nd plural present (including subjunctive), plural imperative and present participle stems are from Old French unstressed stem bev- which involves to beuv-, then buv-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bwaʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -waʁ

Verb

boire

1. (transitive, intransitive) to drink
   • 2018, Zaz, On s'en remet jamais:

     Je rêve de boire à tes mots

     I dream of drinking to your words

Conjugation

Conjugation of boire (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	boire
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	buvant /by.vɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		bu /by/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	bois /bwa/	bois /bwa/	boit /bwa/	buvons /by.vɔ̃/	buvez /by.ve/	boivent /bwav/
	imperfect	buvais /by.vɛ/	buvais /by.vɛ/	buvait /by.vɛ/	buvions /by.vjɔ̃/	buviez /by.vje/	buvaient /by.vɛ/
	past historic2	bus /by/	bus /by/	but /by/	bûmes /bym/	bûtes /byt/	burent /byʁ/
	future	boirai /bwa.ʁe/	boiras /bwa.ʁa/	boira /bwa.ʁa/	boirons /bwa.ʁɔ̃/	boirez /bwa.ʁe/	boiront /bwa.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	boirais /bwa.ʁɛ/	boirais /bwa.ʁɛ/	boirait /bwa.ʁɛ/	boirions /bwa.ʁjɔ̃/	boiriez /bwa.ʁje/	boiraient /bwa.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	boive /bwav/	boives /bwav/	boive /bwav/	buvions /by.vjɔ̃/	buviez /by.vje/	boivent /bwav/
	imperfect2	busse /bys/	busses /bys/	bût /by/	bussions /by.sjɔ̃/	bussiez /by.sje/	bussent /bys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	bois /bwa/	—	buvons /by.vɔ̃/	buvez /by.ve/	—
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

• avoir toute honte bue
• boire au goulot
• boire comme un trou
• boire du petit-lait
• boire la tasse
• boire le calice jusqu’à la lie
• boire les paroles
• chanson à boire
• il y a à boire et à manger
• ne pas être la mer à boire
• on ne saurait faire boire un âne qui n’a pas soif
• pleuvoir à boire debout
• qui a bu boira

 

Related terms

• boisson
• buvable
• buvard
• buvette
• buveur

Descendants

• Saint Dominican Creole French: boir
  • Haitian Creole: bwè

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• broie
• obéir

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French boivre, beivre, from Latin bibō, bibere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbwɛrə/

Verb

boire

1. (transitive, intransitive) to drink

Related terms

• boysson

Descendants

• French: boire

Romanian

Etymology

From boi +‎ -re.

Noun

boire f (plural boiri)

1. painting, dyeing
2. putting on make-up

Declension

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	boire	boirea		boiri	boirile
genitive-dative	boiri	boirii		boiri	boirilor
vocative	boire, boireo			boirilor