recourir

French

Etymology

From re- +‎ courir, with some senses from Latin recurrere. Found in Old French as recourre, recorre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁə.ku.ʁiʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

recourir (intransitive)

1. to run again, to race again
2. to resort [with à ‘to a thing or action’]
3. to turn [with à ‘to a person’] (for help, etc.)

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 recourir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	recourir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	recourant /ʁə.ku.ʁɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		recouru /ʁə.ku.ʁy/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	recours /ʁə.kuʁ/	recours /ʁə.kuʁ/	recourt /ʁə.kuʁ/	recourons /ʁə.ku.ʁɔ̃/	recourez /ʁə.ku.ʁe/	recourent /ʁə.kuʁ/
	imperfect	recourais /ʁə.ku.ʁɛ/	recourais /ʁə.ku.ʁɛ/	recourait /ʁə.ku.ʁɛ/	recourions /ʁə.ku.ʁjɔ̃/	recouriez /ʁə.ku.ʁje/	recouraient /ʁə.ku.ʁɛ/
	past historic2	recourus /ʁə.ku.ʁy/	recourus /ʁə.ku.ʁy/	recourut /ʁə.ku.ʁy/	recourûmes /ʁə.ku.ʁym/	recourûtes /ʁə.ku.ʁyt/	recoururent /ʁə.ku.ʁyʁ/
	future	recourrai /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁe/	recourras /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁa/	recourra /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁa/	recourrons /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁɔ̃/	recourrez /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁe/	recourront /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	recourrais /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	recourrais /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	recourrait /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁɛ/	recourrions /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁjɔ̃/	recourriez /ʁə.kuʁ.ʁje/	recourraient /ʁə.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	recoure /ʁə.kuʁ/	recoures /ʁə.kuʁ/	recoure /ʁə.kuʁ/	recourions /ʁə.ku.ʁjɔ̃/	recouriez /ʁə.ku.ʁje/	recourent /ʁə.kuʁ/
	imperfect2	recourusse /ʁə.ku.ʁys/	recourusses /ʁə.ku.ʁys/	recourût /ʁə.ku.ʁy/	recourussions /ʁə.ku.ʁy.sjɔ̃/	recourussiez /ʁə.ku.ʁy.sje/	recourussent /ʁə.ku.ʁys/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	recours /ʁə.kuʁ/	—	recourons /ʁə.ku.ʁɔ̃/	recourez /ʁə.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
• recours
• récursion

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• courrier