See also: regner

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French reignier, borrowed from Latin rēgnāre (to govern).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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régner

  1. (intransitive) to reign (of a monarch)
    régner sur un paysto reign over a country
  2. (intransitive, figurative) to reign (to have a powerful influence on)
    il règne dans mon cœur
    he reigns over my heart

Conjugation

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This verb is conjugated like céder. It is a regular -er verb, except that its last stem vowel alternates between /e/ (written 'é') and /ɛ/ (written 'è'), with the latter being used before mute 'e'. One special case is the future stem, used in the future and the conditional. Before 1990, the future stem of such verbs was written régner-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written règner-, reflecting the now common pronunciation /ɛ/, thereby making this distinction consistent throughout the conjugation (and also matching in this regard the conjugations of verbs like lever and jeter). Both spellings are in use today, and both are therefore given here.

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References

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  1. ^ régner”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.