tutoyer

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French tutoyer.

Verb

tutoyer (third-person singular simple present tutoyers, present participle tutoyering, simple past and past participle tutoyered)

1. (transitive) To address (someone) in French using the familiar second-person pronoun tu; to thou.
   • 1862, The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, volume 115, page 132:

     As I had begged Goethe to tutoyer me, he sent me a message to say, I must really remain more than the two days I had named, otherwise he should never get into the way of doing so.

   • 1866, William Stamer, Recollections of a Life of Adventure, volume 1, page 83:

     […] Corporal Cornichon, walking straight up to the bar, "tutoyering" me all the time in the most horridly familiar manner, clapped me on the back, and asked me to take a glass of cognac with him.

Synonyms

• tutoy

Coordinate terms

• vousvoyer, vouvoy

Translations

to address (someone) using the familiar second-person pronoun — see thou

See also

• T-V distinction
• thou ~ you

French

Etymology

From tu + -oyer with euphonic t; compare the Icelandic þúa, German duzen and English thou. Cognate with Portuguese tutear, Spanish tutear and Romanian tutui.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ty.twa.je/

• audio

  (file)

Verb

tutoyer

1. (transitive) to thou (to address (someone) using the informal second-person pronoun tu rather than the formal vous)

   Antonym: vouvoyer

2. (colloquial) to be familiar with, to be close to something

   Tutoyer la mort. ― To be no stranger to death

   • 2024 (14 April), Yves Boisvert, "J'ai marié un espion", La Presse:

     Le centre-ville restauré de Bozeman a gardé son charme western rustique, tout en accueillant une nouvelle cohorte de hipsters, amateurs de plein air, de vélo de montagne et de kombucha. Ils sont venus tutoyer l’ours et le pygargue à tête blanche dans les sentiers de montagne et ne sont jamais repartis.

     Downtown Bozeman has kept its rustic western charm all while welcoming a new cohort of hipsters, fans of the outdoors, mountain bikes, and kombucha. They came to get up close and personal with the bear and the bald eagle on mountain trails and never left.

Conjugation

This verb is part of a large group of -er verbs that conjugate like noyer or ennuyer. These verbs always replace the 'y' with an 'i' before a silent 'e'.

Conjugation of tutoyer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	tutoyer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	tutoyant /ty.twa.jɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		tutoyé /ty.twa.je/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	tutoie /ty.twa/	tutoies /ty.twa/	tutoie /ty.twa/	tutoyons /ty.twa.jɔ̃/	tutoyez /ty.twa.je/	tutoient /ty.twa/
	imperfect	tutoyais /ty.twa.jɛ/	tutoyais /ty.twa.jɛ/	tutoyait /ty.twa.jɛ/	tutoyions /ty.twaj.jɔ̃/	tutoyiez /ty.twaj.je/	tutoyaient /ty.twa.jɛ/
	past historic2	tutoyai /ty.twa.je/	tutoyas /ty.twa.ja/	tutoya /ty.twa.ja/	tutoyâmes /ty.twa.jam/	tutoyâtes /ty.twa.jat/	tutoyèrent /ty.twa.jɛʁ/
	future	tutoierai /ty.twa.ʁe/	tutoieras /ty.twa.ʁa/	tutoiera /ty.twa.ʁa/	tutoierons /ty.twa.ʁɔ̃/	tutoierez /ty.twa.ʁe/	tutoieront /ty.twa.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	tutoierais /ty.twa.ʁɛ/	tutoierais /ty.twa.ʁɛ/	tutoierait /ty.twa.ʁɛ/	tutoierions /ty.twa.ʁjɔ̃/	tutoieriez /ty.twa.ʁje/	tutoieraient /ty.twa.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	tutoie /ty.twa/	tutoies /ty.twa/	tutoie /ty.twa/	tutoyions /ty.twaj.jɔ̃/	tutoyiez /ty.twaj.je/	tutoient /ty.twa/
	imperfect2	tutoyasse /ty.twa.jas/	tutoyasses /ty.twa.jas/	tutoyât /ty.twa.ja/	tutoyassions /ty.twa.ja.sjɔ̃/	tutoyassiez /ty.twa.ja.sje/	tutoyassent /ty.twa.jas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	tutoie /ty.twa/	—	tutoyons /ty.twa.jɔ̃/	tutoyez /ty.twa.je/	—
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

• tutoiement

See also

• T-V distinction

Further reading

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