attraire

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French atraire, atreire, from Vulgar Latin *attragere, from Latin attrahō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.tʁɛʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

attraire

1. (obsolete) to attract (be attractive)
2. (obsolete, law) to sue

Conjugation

This verb traditionally has no past historic or imperfect subjunctive. They would be formed on a -attray- root: *je attrayis, *que nous attrayissions etc. Forms using the 'a' endings of verbs in -er are now used when there is an unavoidable need to use these forms. The root -attrais- was used instead of -attray- in the 18th century, and remains in Swiss and Savoy dialects.

Conjugation of attraire (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	attraire
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	attrayant /a.tʁɛ.jɑ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		attrait /a.tʁɛ/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	attrait /a.tʁɛ/	attrayons /a.tʁɛ.jɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɔ̃/	attrayez /a.tʁɛ.je/ or /a.tʁe.je/	attraient /a.tʁɛ/
	imperfect	attrayais /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayais /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayait /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/	attrayions /a.tʁɛj.jɔ̃/	attrayiez /a.tʁɛj.je/	attrayaient /a.tʁɛ.jɛ/ or /a.tʁe.jɛ/
	past historic2	attrayai /a.tʁɛe/	attrayas /a.tʁɛa/	attraya /a.tʁɛa/	attrayâmes /a.tʁɛam/	attrayâtes /a.tʁɛat/	attrayèrent /a.tʁɛɛʁ/
	future	attrairai /a.tʁɛ.ʁe/ or /a.tʁe.ʁe/	attrairas /a.tʁɛ.ʁa/ or /a.tʁe.ʁa/	attraira /a.tʁɛ.ʁa/ or /a.tʁe.ʁa/	attrairons /a.tʁɛ.ʁɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɔ̃/	attrairez /a.tʁɛ.ʁe/ or /a.tʁe.ʁe/	attrairont /a.tʁɛ.ʁɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	attrairais /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairais /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairait /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.ʁɛ/	attrairions /a.tʁɛ.ʁjɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.ʁjɔ̃/	attrairiez /a.tʁɛ.ʁje/ or /a.tʁe.ʁje/	attrairaient /a.tʁɛ.ʁɛ/ or /a.tʁe.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	attraie /a.tʁɛ/	attraies /a.tʁɛ/	attraie /a.tʁɛ/	attrayions /a.tʁɛj.jɔ̃/	attrayiez /a.tʁɛj.je/	attraient /a.tʁɛ/
	imperfect2	attrayasse /a.tʁɛas/	attrayasses /a.tʁɛas/	attrayât /a.tʁɛa/	attrayassions /a.tʁɛa.sjɔ̃/	attrayassiez /a.tʁɛa.sje/	attrayassent /a.tʁɛas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	attrais /a.tʁɛ/	—	attrayons /a.tʁɛ.jɔ̃/ or /a.tʁe.jɔ̃/	attrayez /a.tʁɛ.je/ or /a.tʁe.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

• attrayable
• attrayant

Further reading

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