bénir

See also: benir

French edit

Etymology edit

Inherited from Old French beneïr, inherited from Latin benedīcere.

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): /be.niʁ/
Audio (file)

Verb edit

bénir

to bless (invoke or give supernatural assistance)

Usage notes edit

This verb has two past participles, regular béni and irregular bénit. Only the former is used in perfect tenses. Otherwise, i.e. in the passive and in adjectival use, béni is used for “blessed”, and bénit is used for “consecrated”.

Conjugation edit

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 bénir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	compound	avoir + past participle
infinitive	simple	bénir
present participle or gerund¹	simple	bénissant /be.ni.sɑ̃/
present participle or gerund¹	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		béni /be.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	bénis /be.ni/	bénis /be.ni/	bénit /be.ni/	bénissons /be.ni.sɔ̃/	bénissez /be.ni.se/	bénissent /be.nis/
	imperfect	bénissais /be.ni.sɛ/	bénissais /be.ni.sɛ/	bénissait /be.ni.sɛ/	bénissions /be.ni.sjɔ̃/	bénissiez /be.ni.sje/	bénissaient /be.ni.sɛ/
	past historic²	bénis /be.ni/	bénis /be.ni/	bénit /be.ni/	bénîmes /be.nim/	bénîtes /be.nit/	bénirent /be.niʁ/
	future	bénirai /be.ni.ʁe/	béniras /be.ni.ʁa/	bénira /be.ni.ʁa/	bénirons /be.ni.ʁɔ̃/	bénirez /be.ni.ʁe/	béniront /be.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	bénirais /be.ni.ʁɛ/	bénirais /be.ni.ʁɛ/	bénirait /be.ni.ʁɛ/	bénirions /be.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	béniriez /be.ni.ʁje/	béniraient /be.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	bénisse /be.nis/	bénisses /be.nis/	bénisse /be.nis/	bénissions /be.ni.sjɔ̃/	bénissiez /be.ni.sje/	bénissent /be.nis/
(simple tenses)	imperfect²	bénisse /be.nis/	bénisses /be.nis/	bénît /be.ni/	bénissions /be.ni.sjɔ̃/	bénissiez /be.ni.sje/	bénissent /be.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
(compound tenses)	pluperfect²	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	~~nous~~	~~vous~~	–
simple		—	bénis /be.ni/	—	bénissons /be.ni.sɔ̃/	bénissez /be.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).