fournir

French

Etymology

From Old French furnir, fornir (whence also English furnish), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *frumjan (“to complete, execute”), from Proto-Germanic *frumjaną (“to further, promote”), from Proto-Indo-European *promo- (“front, forward”). Cf. Old High German frumjan (“to perform, provide”), from fruma (“utility, gain”), akin to Old English fremu (“profit, advantage”), fremian (“to promote, perform”). Compare Catalan fornir, Italian fornire, English furnish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fuʁ.niʁ/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iʁ

Verb

fournir

1. to supply, to provide, to furnish

   La boulangerie fournit mon restaurant en pain.

   The bakery supplies my restaurant with bread.

   Les systèmes d’interprétation simultanée permettent de fournir à de nombreuses personnes un discours dans leur langue alors même que l’orateur le prononce dans une autre langue.

   Simultaneous interpretation systems allow a large number of people to be provided with a speech in their own language at the same time as the speaker is delivering it in another.

2. to put in

   fournir de l’effort ― to put in effort

3. (card games) to follow suit
4. (slang) to poke, to shaft, to hump; to have sex

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 fournir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	fournir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	fournissant /fuʁ.ni.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		fourni /fuʁ.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournit /fuʁ.ni/	fournissons /fuʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	fournissez /fuʁ.ni.se/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
	imperfect	fournissais /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissais /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissait /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissaient /fuʁ.ni.sɛ/
	past historic2	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	fournit /fuʁ.ni/	fournîmes /fuʁ.nim/	fournîtes /fuʁ.nit/	fournirent /fuʁ.niʁ/
	future	fournirai /fuʁ.ni.ʁe/	fourniras /fuʁ.ni.ʁa/	fournira /fuʁ.ni.ʁa/	fournirons /fuʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/	fournirez /fuʁ.ni.ʁe/	fourniront /fuʁ.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	fournirais /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirais /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirait /fuʁ.ni.ʁɛ/	fournirions /fuʁ.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	fourniriez /fuʁ.ni.ʁje/	fourniraient /fuʁ.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	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournisses /fuʁ.nis/	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
	imperfect2	fournisse /fuʁ.nis/	fournisses /fuʁ.nis/	fournît /fuʁ.ni/	fournissions /fuʁ.ni.sjɔ̃/	fournissiez /fuʁ.ni.sje/	fournissent /fuʁ.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	fournis /fuʁ.ni/	—	fournissons /fuʁ.ni.sɔ̃/	fournissez /fuʁ.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).

Derived terms

• fournisseur
• fourniture

Descendants

• → German: furnieren

Further reading

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