recoudre

French

Etymology

re- +‎ coudre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁə.kudʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

recoudre

1. (transitive) to resew, mend (a thing torn or unraveled)
   • 1940, Out-el-Kouloub, “Zaheira”, in Trois contes de l'Amour et de la Mort, éditions Corrêa:

     Et, dans l’après-midi, tandis que les enfants dormaient dans la maison silencieuse, Zaheira s’appliqua à recoudre des boutons, à repasser des cravates, à repriser des chaussettes.

     And in the afternoon, while the children were sleeping in the silent house, Zaheira dedicated herself to resewing buttons, ironing ties, and mending shoes.

2. (surgery, transitive) to stitch together, to close (an incision or wound) with surgical stitches
3. (figuratively, transitive) to stitch or piece together, as memories

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated like coudre. That means it is conjugated like rendre, except that its stem is recoud- in only part of the conjugation. Before endings that begin with vowels, the stem recous- (with a /-z-/ sound) is used instead; for example, nous recousons, not *nous recoudons.

Conjugation of recoudre (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	recoudre
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	recousant /ʁə.ku.zɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		recousu /ʁə.ku.zy/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	recouds /ʁə.ku/	recouds /ʁə.ku/	recoud /ʁə.ku/	recousons /ʁə.ku.zɔ̃/	recousez /ʁə.ku.ze/	recousent /ʁə.kuz/
	imperfect	recousais /ʁə.ku.zɛ/	recousais /ʁə.ku.zɛ/	recousait /ʁə.ku.zɛ/	recousions /ʁə.ku.zjɔ̃/	recousiez /ʁə.ku.zje/	recousaient /ʁə.ku.zɛ/
	past historic2	recousis /ʁə.ku.zi/	recousis /ʁə.ku.zi/	recousit /ʁə.ku.zi/	recousîmes /ʁə.ku.zim/	recousîtes /ʁə.ku.zit/	recousirent /ʁə.ku.ziʁ/
	future	recoudrai /ʁə.ku.dʁe/	recoudras /ʁə.ku.dʁa/	recoudra /ʁə.ku.dʁa/	recoudrons /ʁə.ku.dʁɔ̃/	recoudrez /ʁə.ku.dʁe/	recoudront /ʁə.ku.dʁɔ̃/
	conditional	recoudrais /ʁə.ku.dʁɛ/	recoudrais /ʁə.ku.dʁɛ/	recoudrait /ʁə.ku.dʁɛ/	recoudrions /ʁə.ku.dʁi.jɔ̃/	recoudriez /ʁə.ku.dʁi.je/	recoudraient /ʁə.ku.dʁɛ/
(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	recouse /ʁə.kuz/	recouses /ʁə.kuz/	recouse /ʁə.kuz/	recousions /ʁə.ku.zjɔ̃/	recousiez /ʁə.ku.zje/	recousent /ʁə.kuz/
	imperfect2	recousisse /ʁə.ku.zis/	recousisses /ʁə.ku.zis/	recousît /ʁə.ku.zi/	recousissions /ʁə.ku.zi.sjɔ̃/	recousissiez /ʁə.ku.zi.sje/	recousissent /ʁə.ku.zis/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	recouds /ʁə.ku/	—	recousons /ʁə.ku.zɔ̃/	recousez /ʁə.ku.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).

References

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

Further reading

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