vouloir
Appearance
French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Inherited from Old French voloir, voleir, from Vulgar Latin volēre, regularized from Latin velle.
Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]vouloir
- (transitive) to want, wish, desire
- Je veux voir le soleil.
- I want to see the sun.
- Hitler voulait la guerre, mais beaucoup n’en étaient pas conscients.
- Hitler wanted war, but many were not aware of it.
- 1831, Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris [The Hunchback of Notre-Dame]:
- Quand je t’eus vue deux fois, je voulus te voir mille, je voulus te voir toujours.
- Having seen you twice, I wanted to see you a thousand times, I wanted to see you always.
- (reflexive) to see oneself as; to give the impression of, to seem
Usage notes
[edit]- vouloir que takes the subjunctive.
- The second-person singular and plural imperatives have alternative forms: veuille and veuillez, which have slight differences in usage. See individual articles for details.
Conjugation
[edit]Conjugation of vouloir (see also Appendix:French verbs)
infinitive | simple | vouloir | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
compound | avoir + past participle | ||||||
present participle or gerund1 | simple | voulant /vu.lɑ̃/ | |||||
compound | ayant + past participle | ||||||
past participle | voulu /vu.ly/ | ||||||
singular | plural | ||||||
first | second | third | first | second | third | ||
indicative | je (j’) | tu | il, elle, on | nous | vous | ils, elles | |
(simple tenses) |
present | veux /vø/ |
veux /vø/ |
veut /vø/ |
voulons /vu.lɔ̃/ |
voulez /vu.le/ |
veulent /vœl/ |
imperfect | voulais /vu.lɛ/ |
voulais /vu.lɛ/ |
voulait /vu.lɛ/ |
voulions /vu.ljɔ̃/ |
vouliez /vu.lje/ |
voulaient /vu.lɛ/ | |
past historic2 | voulus /vu.ly/ |
voulus /vu.ly/ |
voulut /vu.ly/ |
voulûmes /vu.lym/ |
voulûtes /vu.lyt/ |
voulurent /vu.lyʁ/ | |
future | voudrai /vu.dʁe/ |
voudras /vu.dʁa/ |
voudra /vu.dʁa/ |
voudrons /vu.dʁɔ̃/ |
voudrez /vu.dʁe/ |
voudront /vu.dʁɔ̃/ | |
conditional | voudrais /vu.dʁɛ/ |
voudrais /vu.dʁɛ/ |
voudrait /vu.dʁɛ/ |
voudrions /vu.dʁi.jɔ̃/ |
voudriez /vu.dʁi.je/ |
voudraient /vu.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 | veuille /vœj/ |
veuilles /vœj/ |
veuille /vœj/ |
voulions /vu.ljɔ̃/ |
vouliez /vu.lje/ |
veuillent /vœj/ |
imperfect2 | voulusse /vu.lys/ |
voulusses /vu.lys/ |
voulût /vu.ly/ |
voulussions /vu.ly.sjɔ̃/ |
voulussiez /vu.ly.sje/ |
voulussent /vu.lys/ | |
(compound tenses) |
past | present subjunctive of avoir + past participle | |||||
pluperfect2 | imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle | ||||||
imperative | – | – | – | ||||
simple | — | veux or veuille /vø/ or /vœj/ |
— | voulons or veuillons /vu.lɔ̃/ or /vœ.jɔ̃/ |
voulez or veuillez /vu.le/ or /vœ.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:
(Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81). |
Derived terms
[edit]- à bouche que veux-tu
- à mouchoir que veux-tu
- à qui veut l’entendre
- ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut
- en temps voulu
- en veux-tu en voilà
- en vouloir
- il n’est pire aveugle que celui qui ne veut pas voir
- il n’est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre
- je veux, mon neveu
- quand on veut, on peut
- que veux-tu
- qui veut la fin veut les moyens
- si tu vois ce que je veux dire
- tu veux rire
- vouloir c’est pouvoir
- vouloir dire
- vous voulez rire
Descendants
[edit]Noun
[edit]vouloir m (plural vouloirs)
Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “vouloir”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- French terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- French terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *welh₁-
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms inherited from Vulgar Latin
- French terms derived from Vulgar Latin
- French terms inherited from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:French/waʁ
- French lemmas
- French verbs
- French transitive verbs
- French terms with usage examples
- French terms with quotations
- French reflexive verbs
- French third group verbs
- French irregular verbs
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French raising verbs
- French subjunctive-subordinating terms