léser

See also: leser, and Leser

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French leser, ultimately derived from Latin laesus, past participle of laedo (“to hurt, offend”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /le.ze/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

léser

1. (transitive) to wrong; to do wrong by (someone); to harm, to hurt
   • 1913, Marcel Proust, translated by Brian Nelson, Un amour de Swann, page 122:

     Elle savait que son mensonge lésait d’ordinaire gravement l’homme à qui elle le faisait, et à la merci duquel elle allait peut-être tomber si elle mentait mal.

     She knew, moreover, that through her lie she was usually seriously hurting the man to whom she was telling it, and at whose mercy she would perhaps find herself if she lied badly.

   • 2021 May 2, “La Corée du Nord rejette tout dialogue avec Washington”, in Le Monde‎^[1]:

     Nous avons suffisamment averti les Etats-Unis pour comprendre qu’ils seront lésés s’ils nous provoquent.

     We have sufficiently warned the United States for them to understand that they will be harmed if they provoke us.

2. (transitive, medicine) to lesion (to produce a lesion in)

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like céder. It is a regular -er verb, except that its last stem vowel alternates between /e/ (written 'é') and /ɛ/ (written 'è'), with the latter being used before mute 'e'. One special case is the future stem, used in the future and the conditional. Before 1990, the future stem of such verbs was written léser-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written lèser-, reflecting the now common pronunciation /ɛ/, thereby making this distinction consistent throughout the conjugation (and also matching in this regard the conjugations of verbs like lever and jeter). Both spellings are in use today, and both are therefore given here.

Conjugation of léser (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	léser
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	lésant /le.zɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		lésé /le.ze/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	lèse /lɛz/	lèses /lɛz/	lèse /lɛz/	lésons /le.zɔ̃/	lésez /le.ze/	lèsent /lɛz/
	imperfect	lésais /le.zɛ/	lésais /le.zɛ/	lésait /le.zɛ/	lésions /le.zjɔ̃/	lésiez /le.zje/	lésaient /le.zɛ/
	past historic2	lésai /le.ze/	lésas /le.za/	lésa /le.za/	lésâmes /le.zam/	lésâtes /le.zat/	lésèrent /le.zɛʁ/
	future	lèserai or léserai /lɛz.ʁe/	lèseras or léseras /lɛz.ʁa/	lèsera or lésera /lɛz.ʁa/	lèserons or léserons /lɛz.ʁɔ̃/	lèserez or léserez /lɛz.ʁe/	lèseront or léseront /lɛz.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	lèserais or léserais /lɛz.ʁɛ/	lèserais or léserais /lɛz.ʁɛ/	lèserait or léserait /lɛz.ʁɛ/	lèserions or léserions /lɛ.zə.ʁjɔ̃/ or /le.zə.ʁjɔ̃/	lèseriez or léseriez /lɛ.zə.ʁje/ or /le.zə.ʁje/	lèseraient or léseraient /lɛz.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	lèse /lɛz/	lèses /lɛz/	lèse /lɛz/	lésions /le.zjɔ̃/	lésiez /le.zje/	lèsent /lɛz/
	imperfect2	lésasse /le.zas/	lésasses /le.zas/	lésât /le.za/	lésassions /le.za.sjɔ̃/	lésassiez /le.za.sje/	lésassent /le.zas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	lèse /lɛz/	—	lésons /le.zɔ̃/	lésez /le.ze/	—
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

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