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Definition 2024


avoir

avoir

French

Noun

avoir m (plural avoirs)

  1. asset, possession

Verb

avoir

  1. (transitive) to have (to own; to possess)
    J'aimerais avoir 20 dollars.
    I would like to have 20 dollars.
  2. (intransitive, with à) to have (to)
    J'ai à vous parler.
    I have to talk to you.
  3. (auxiliary) to have (auxiliary verb to form compound past tenses of most verbs)
    J'ai parlé.
    I have spoken.
  4. (transitive) to have (a condition)
    J'ai faim.
    I'm hungry. (literally: “I have hunger.”)
    J'ai froid.
    I'm cold. (literally, “I have cold.”)
  5. (transitive) to have (a measure or age)
    Elle a 19 ans.
    She is 19 years old. (literally, “She has 19 years.”)
  6. to have (to trick)
    Tu t'es fait avoir.
    You've been had.
  7. to have (to participate in an experience)
    avoir des relations sexuelles
    to have sexual relations

Conjugation

Usage notes

  • Avoir is often used with nouns like chaud (heat), faim (hunger), soif (thirst), peur (fear), etc. to express a personal condition or feeling, as shown in examples above. While constructions like être affamé (“be starving/starved”) and être assoiffé (“be thirsty”) exist, they are almost always used figuratively. It is always more natural to use avoir rather than être in the examples listed above, and other similar cases. In some cases, both verbs can be used, but with vastly different meanings:

J'ai chaud. ― I'm hot.
Je suis chaud. ― I'm horny.

Derived terms

Look at pages starting with avoir.

See also


Middle French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French avoir, aveir, from Latin habēre, present active infinitive of habeō (have, hold, possess), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰh₁bʰ- (to grab, to take).

Verb

avoir

  1. to have
  2. (auxiliary verb) to have (verb used to form the perfect tense)

Conjugation

  • Like Modern French avoir, highly irregular
  • Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants

References

  • avoir on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) (in French)

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From earlier aveir, aver, from Latin habēre (have, hold, possess), present active infinitive of habeō.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /a.vojr/

Verb

avoir

  1. to have
  2. (auxiliary verb) to have (verb used to form the perfect tense)
  3. to exist (there is/there are)
    • c. 1200, Author unknown, Les quatres sohais Saint Martin:
      Un vilain ot en Normendie
      There was a peasant in Normandy

Conjugation

This verb conjugates as a third-group verb. This verb has irregularities in its conjugation. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

Noun

avoir m (oblique plural avoirs, nominative singular avoirs, nominative plural avoir)

  1. possession; good

Descendants

  • English: aver (from aver, aveir)
  • Middle French: avoir
  • Norman: aveir, aver (from aver, aveir)
  • Walloon: aveur (from aver, aveir)