acculer

French

Etymology

From a- +‎ cul +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ky.le/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: acculai, acculé, acculée, acculées, acculés, acculez

Verb

acculer

1. (transitive) to corner someone, to prevent retreat or escape
   • 2009 January 23, Marie-Claude Decamps, “Ambiguïtés iraniennes”, in Le Monde‎^[1]:

     Une petite frange de fondamentalistes, plus radicaux encore que le président, ont peur que si Obama les accule par trop d’ouverture à ouvrir eux aussi le régime, tout leur échappe des mains.

     A small fringe of fundamentalists, even more radical than the president, were afraid that if Obama were to corner them by being too open to opening the regime themselves, everything would slip out of their hands.

Conjugation

Conjugation of acculer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	acculer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	acculant /a.ky.lɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		acculé /a.ky.le/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	accule /a.kyl/	accules /a.kyl/	accule /a.kyl/	acculons /a.ky.lɔ̃/	acculez /a.ky.le/	acculent /a.kyl/
	imperfect	acculais /a.ky.lɛ/	acculais /a.ky.lɛ/	acculait /a.ky.lɛ/	acculions /a.ky.ljɔ̃/	acculiez /a.ky.lje/	acculaient /a.ky.lɛ/
	past historic2	acculai /a.ky.le/	acculas /a.ky.la/	accula /a.ky.la/	acculâmes /a.ky.lam/	acculâtes /a.ky.lat/	acculèrent /a.ky.lɛʁ/
	future	acculerai /a.kyl.ʁe/	acculeras /a.kyl.ʁa/	acculera /a.kyl.ʁa/	acculerons /a.kyl.ʁɔ̃/	acculerez /a.kyl.ʁe/	acculeront /a.kyl.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	acculerais /a.kyl.ʁɛ/	acculerais /a.kyl.ʁɛ/	acculerait /a.kyl.ʁɛ/	acculerions /a.ky.lə.ʁjɔ̃/	acculeriez /a.ky.lə.ʁje/	acculeraient /a.kyl.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	accule /a.kyl/	accules /a.kyl/	accule /a.kyl/	acculions /a.ky.ljɔ̃/	acculiez /a.ky.lje/	acculent /a.kyl/
	imperfect2	acculasse /a.ky.las/	acculasses /a.ky.las/	acculât /a.ky.la/	acculassions /a.ky.la.sjɔ̃/	acculassiez /a.ky.la.sje/	acculassent /a.ky.las/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	accule /a.kyl/	—	acculons /a.ky.lɔ̃/	acculez /a.ky.le/	—
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).

See also

• au pied du mur

Further reading

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