fleurer

French

Etymology

Perhaps a variant of flairer, or more likely from fleur (“odour”) (obsolete in standard modern French but still found in local dialects), from Old French flaour, flaör (whence English flavour), from Vulgar Latin *flātārī (“odour, that which blows”), from Latin flātus.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

fleurer

1. to give off (an odor)
2. to waft
3. to smell, catch a waft of
4. to sprinkle

Conjugation

Conjugation of fleurer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	fleurer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	fleurant /flœ.ʁɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		fleuré /flœ.ʁe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	fleure /flœʁ/	fleures /flœʁ/	fleure /flœʁ/	fleurons /flœ.ʁɔ̃/	fleurez /flœ.ʁe/	fleurent /flœʁ/
	imperfect	fleurais /flœ.ʁɛ/	fleurais /flœ.ʁɛ/	fleurait /flœ.ʁɛ/	fleurions /flœ.ʁjɔ̃/	fleuriez /flœ.ʁje/	fleuraient /flœ.ʁɛ/
	past historic2	fleurai /flœ.ʁe/	fleuras /flœ.ʁa/	fleura /flœ.ʁa/	fleurâmes /flœ.ʁam/	fleurâtes /flœ.ʁat/	fleurèrent /flœ.ʁɛʁ/
	future	fleurerai /flœ.ʁə.ʁe/	fleureras /flœ.ʁə.ʁa/	fleurera /flœ.ʁə.ʁa/	fleurerons /flœ.ʁə.ʁɔ̃/	fleurerez /flœ.ʁə.ʁe/	fleureront /flœ.ʁə.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	fleurerais /flœ.ʁə.ʁɛ/	fleurerais /flœ.ʁə.ʁɛ/	fleurerait /flœ.ʁə.ʁɛ/	fleurerions /flœ.ʁə.ʁjɔ̃/	fleureriez /flœ.ʁə.ʁje/	fleureraient /flœ.ʁə.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	fleure /flœʁ/	fleures /flœʁ/	fleure /flœʁ/	fleurions /flœ.ʁjɔ̃/	fleuriez /flœ.ʁje/	fleurent /flœʁ/
	imperfect2	fleurasse /flœ.ʁas/	fleurasses /flœ.ʁas/	fleurât /flœ.ʁa/	fleurassions /flœ.ʁa.sjɔ̃/	fleurassiez /flœ.ʁa.sje/	fleurassent /flœ.ʁas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	fleure /flœʁ/	—	fleurons /flœ.ʁɔ̃/	fleurez /flœ.ʁe/	—
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

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