discourir

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin discurrere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dis.ku.ʁiʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

discourir

1. (intransitive) to talk, discourse, hold forth

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like other regular -ir verbs, except that in the conditional and future tenses an extra 'r' is added to the end of the stem and the past participle ends in -u. All verb ending in -courir are conjugated this way.

Conjugation of discourir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	discourir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	discourant /dis.ku.ʁɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		discouru /dis.ku.ʁy/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	discours /dis.kuʁ/	discours /dis.kuʁ/	discourt /dis.kuʁ/	discourons /dis.ku.ʁɔ̃/	discourez /dis.ku.ʁe/	discourent /dis.kuʁ/
	imperfect	discourais /dis.ku.ʁɛ/	discourais /dis.ku.ʁɛ/	discourait /dis.ku.ʁɛ/	discourions /dis.ku.ʁjɔ̃/	discouriez /dis.ku.ʁje/	discouraient /dis.ku.ʁɛ/
	past historic2	discourus /dis.ku.ʁy/	discourus /dis.ku.ʁy/	discourut /dis.ku.ʁy/	discourûmes /dis.ku.ʁym/	discourûtes /dis.ku.ʁyt/	discoururent /dis.ku.ʁyʁ/
	future	discourrai /dis.kuʁ.ʁe/	discourras /dis.kuʁ.ʁa/	discourra /dis.kuʁ.ʁa/	discourrons /dis.kuʁ.ʁɔ̃/	discourrez /dis.kuʁ.ʁe/	discourront /dis.kuʁ.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	discourrais /dis.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	discourrais /dis.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	discourrait /dis.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	discourrions /dis.kuʁ.ʁjɔ̃/	discourriez /dis.kuʁ.ʁje/	discourraient /dis.kuʁ.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	discoure /dis.kuʁ/	discoures /dis.kuʁ/	discoure /dis.kuʁ/	discourions /dis.ku.ʁjɔ̃/	discouriez /dis.ku.ʁje/	discourent /dis.kuʁ/
	imperfect2	discourusse /dis.ku.ʁys/	discourusses /dis.ku.ʁys/	discourût /dis.ku.ʁy/	discourussions /dis.ku.ʁy.sjɔ̃/	discourussiez /dis.ku.ʁy.sje/	discourussent /dis.ku.ʁys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	discours /dis.kuʁ/	—	discourons /dis.ku.ʁɔ̃/	discourez /dis.ku.ʁe/	—
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

• courir
• discours

Further reading

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