bénir

See also: benir

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French beneïr, inherited from Latin benedīcere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /be.niʁ/

• Audio:

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Verb

bénir

1. to bless (invoke or give supernatural assistance)

Usage notes

• 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

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	simple	bénir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	bénissant /be.ni.sɑ̃/
	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/
	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
	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).

Related terms

• bénédiction
• benoît, Benoît
• dire
• maudire

Further reading

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