honnir

French

Etymology

From Middle French honnir, from Old French honir, from Vulgar Latin *haunīre (“shame, dishonor”), from Frankish *haunijan (“humble, humiliate”) (whence also honte), from Proto-Germanic *haunijaną (“to make low, humble”), from Proto-Indo-European *kaw- (“to be evil, make evil”).

Cognate with Old High German hōnen (“to humble”), Middle Dutch honen (“to dishonour, debauch, corrupt”), Old English hīenan (“to humble, abase”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌽𐌾𐌰𐌽 (haunjan, “to humiliate, abase”).

Pronunciation

• ^{(aspirated h)} IPA^(key): /ɔ.niʁ/

• Audio:

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Verb

honnir

1. (archaic, literary, transitive) to shame; to disgrace; to dishonor

Conjugation

This is a regular verb of the second conjugation, like finir, choisir, and most other verbs with infinitives ending in -ir. One salient feature of this conjugation is the repeated appearance of the infix -iss-.

Conjugation of honnir (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	honnir
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	honnissant /ɔ.ni.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		honni /ɔ.ni/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	honnis /ɔ.ni/	honnis /ɔ.ni/	honnit /ɔ.ni/	honnissons /ɔ.ni.sɔ̃/	honnissez /ɔ.ni.se/	honnissent /ɔ.nis/
	imperfect	honnissais /ɔ.ni.sɛ/	honnissais /ɔ.ni.sɛ/	honnissait /ɔ.ni.sɛ/	honnissions /ɔ.ni.sjɔ̃/	honnissiez /ɔ.ni.sje/	honnissaient /ɔ.ni.sɛ/
	past historic2	honnis /ɔ.ni/	honnis /ɔ.ni/	honnit /ɔ.ni/	honnîmes /ɔ.nim/	honnîtes /ɔ.nit/	honnirent /ɔ.niʁ/
	future	honnirai /ɔ.ni.ʁe/	honniras /ɔ.ni.ʁa/	honnira /ɔ.ni.ʁa/	honnirons /ɔ.ni.ʁɔ̃/	honnirez /ɔ.ni.ʁe/	honniront /ɔ.ni.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	honnirais /ɔ.ni.ʁɛ/	honnirais /ɔ.ni.ʁɛ/	honnirait /ɔ.ni.ʁɛ/	honnirions /ɔ.ni.ʁjɔ̃/	honniriez /ɔ.ni.ʁje/	honniraient /ɔ.ni.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	honnisse /ɔ.nis/	honnisses /ɔ.nis/	honnisse /ɔ.nis/	honnissions /ɔ.ni.sjɔ̃/	honnissiez /ɔ.ni.sje/	honnissent /ɔ.nis/
	imperfect2	honnisse /ɔ.nis/	honnisses /ɔ.nis/	honnît /ɔ.ni/	honnissions /ɔ.ni.sjɔ̃/	honnissiez /ɔ.ni.sje/	honnissent /ɔ.nis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	honnis /ɔ.ni/	—	honnissons /ɔ.ni.sɔ̃/	honnissez /ɔ.ni.se/	—
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).

Further reading

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