leur
French
editEtymology
editInherited from Middle French leur, from Old French lor, from Latin illōrum, genitive masculine plural of ille.
As a possessive it was originally uninflected (as still is Italian loro), but adopted the plural ending in Middle French. Feminine -e was hindered by the analogy of other possessives, all of which have but one plural form and in the case of notre, votre no gender agreement at all.
Pronunciation
editPronoun
editleur m pl or f pl
- (personal, indirect) (to) them
- Je leur ai donné un coup de main.
- I gave them a hand.
Related terms
editFrench personal pronouns
| Number | Person | Gender | Nominative (subject) |
Accusative (direct complement) |
Dative (indirect complement) |
Locative (at) |
Genitive (of) |
Disjunctive (tonic) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | First | — | je, j’ | me, m’ | — | — | moi | |
| Second | — | tu | te, t’ | — | — | toi | ||
| Third | Masculine | il | le, l’ | lui | y | en | lui | |
| Feminine | elle | la, l’ | elle | |||||
| Indeterminate | on1 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| Reflexive | — | se, s’4 | — | — | soi4 | |||
| Plural | First | — | nous | nous | — | — | nous | |
| Second | — | vous2 | vous2,3 | — | — | vous2 | ||
| Third | Masculine | ils3 | les | leur | y | en | eux3 | |
| Feminine | elles | elles | ||||||
- 1 Also used as the first person plural.
- 2 Also used as the polite singular form.
- 3 Also used when a group has both men and women.
- 4 Also used as third person plural reflexive.
Determiner
editleur (plural leurs)
- their
- J’aperçois leur maison d’ici.
- I can see their house from here.
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editFrench possessive determiners
Further reading
edit- “leur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
editMiddle French
editEtymology
editFrom Old French lor.
Pronoun
editleur
- (object pronoun) them
Descendants
edit- French: leur
Categories:
- French terms inherited from Middle French
- French terms derived from Middle French
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms inherited from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French terms with homophones
- Rhymes:French/œʁ
- Rhymes:French/œʁ/1 syllable
- French non-lemma forms
- French pronoun forms
- French personal pronouns
- French terms with usage examples
- French lemmas
- French determiners
- French possessive determiners
- Middle French terms inherited from Old French
- Middle French terms derived from Old French
- Middle French lemmas
- Middle French pronouns