paraître

See also: paraitre

French

Alternative forms

paroître (Early Modern French, obsolete)
paraitre (post-1990 spelling)

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French paroistre, from Old French paroistre, pareistre, from Vulgar Latin *pārēscere, from Latin pārēre.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /pa.ʁɛtʁ/
Audio: (file)

Verb

paraître

to appear (become visible)
Synonym: apparaître

L’acteur parut sur l’écran. ― The actor appeared on screen.
to be published
Synonym: être publié

Ce texte est paru il y a longtemps. ― This text was published long ago.

Le livre paraîtra en août. ― The book will be published in August.
to appear, to seem
Synonym: sembler

Il paraît avoir 40 ans. ― He seems forty (years old).
(impersonal, with que) to be said that, to be rumored that
Il paraît que le vaccin fonctionne très bien. ― It is said that that the vaccine works very well.

Usage notes

In the sense of to be published, this verb can take the verb être as the perfect auxiliary.^[1]

Conjugation

This verb is one of a fairly small group of -re verbs, that are all conjugated the same way. They are unlike other verb groups in that the 'i' is given a circumflex before a 't'.

Conjugation of paraître (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	compound	avoir or être + past participle
infinitive	simple	paraître
present participle or gerund¹	simple	paraissant /pa.ʁɛ.sɑ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.sɑ̃/
present participle or gerund¹	compound	ayant or étant + past participle
past participle		paru /pa.ʁy/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	parais /pa.ʁɛ/	parais /pa.ʁɛ/	paraît /pa.ʁɛ/	paraissons /pa.ʁɛ.sɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.sɔ̃/	paraissez /pa.ʁɛ.se/ or /pa.ʁe.se/	paraissent /pa.ʁɛs/
	imperfect	paraissais /pa.ʁɛ.sɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.sɛ/	paraissais /pa.ʁɛ.sɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.sɛ/	paraissait /pa.ʁɛ.sɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.sɛ/	paraissions /pa.ʁɛ.sjɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.sjɔ̃/	paraissiez /pa.ʁɛ.sje/ or /pa.ʁe.sje/	paraissaient /pa.ʁɛ.sɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.sɛ/
	past historic²	parus /pa.ʁy/	parus /pa.ʁy/	parut /pa.ʁy/	parûmes /pa.ʁym/	parûtes /pa.ʁyt/	parurent /pa.ʁyʁ/
	future	paraîtrai /pa.ʁɛ.tʁe/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁe/	paraîtras /pa.ʁɛ.tʁa/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁa/	paraîtra /pa.ʁɛ.tʁa/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁa/	paraîtrons /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɔ̃/	paraîtrez /pa.ʁɛ.tʁe/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁe/	paraîtront /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɔ̃/
	conditional	paraîtrais /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɛ/	paraîtrais /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɛ/	paraîtrait /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɛ/	paraîtrions /pa.ʁɛ.tʁi.jɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁi.jɔ̃/	paraîtriez /pa.ʁɛ.tʁi.je/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁi.je/	paraîtraient /pa.ʁɛ.tʁɛ/ or /pa.ʁe.tʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir or être + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir or être + past participle
	past anterior²	past historic of avoir or être + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir or être + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir or être + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	paraisse /pa.ʁɛs/	paraisses /pa.ʁɛs/	paraisse /pa.ʁɛs/	paraissions /pa.ʁɛ.sjɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.sjɔ̃/	paraissiez /pa.ʁɛ.sje/ or /pa.ʁe.sje/	paraissent /pa.ʁɛs/
(simple tenses)	imperfect²	parusse /pa.ʁys/	parusses /pa.ʁys/	parût /pa.ʁy/	parussions /pa.ʁy.sjɔ̃/	parussiez /pa.ʁy.sje/	parussent /pa.ʁys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir or être + past participle
(compound tenses)	pluperfect²	imperfect subjunctive of avoir or être + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	~~nous~~	~~vous~~	–
simple		—	parais /pa.ʁɛ/	—	paraissons /pa.ʁɛ.sɔ̃/ or /pa.ʁe.sɔ̃/	paraissez /pa.ʁɛ.se/ or /pa.ʁe.se/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir or être + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir or être + past participle	simple imperative of avoir or être + 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

Descendants

Saint Dominican Creole French: paroître
- Haitian Creole: parèt

Noun

paraître m (plural paraîtres)

appearance

References

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

Anagrams

parerait, piratera, râperait, repaitra, repaîtra, reparait, reparaît, réparait, repatria

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

[1]