alunir
French
FWOTD – 3 August 2025
Etymology
Etymology tree
From a- + lune + -ir, by analogy with atterrir and amerrir.[1] Compare Italian allunare, Portuguese alunar, alunissar, Romanian aluniza, and Spanish alunizar.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /a.ly.niʁ/
Audio: (file) Audio (France (Toulouse)): (file) Audio (France (Vosges)): (file) Audio (France (Lyon)): (file) Audio (France (Somain)): (file) - Rhymes: -iʁ
Verb
alunir (intransitive)
- to land on the Moon [from 1921][1]
- 1921, Charles Nordmann, chapter 5, in Einstein et l'univers[1], Paris: Hachette, archived from the original on 3 May 2024, page 127:
- Considérons donc le projectile lorsqu'il commence à tomber librement vers la Lune. Il est évident qu'à partir de cet instant et jusqu'à ce qu'il ait atterri ou plutôt aluni…, il se comportera exactement comme notre ascenseur—je devrais dire notre descenseur—de tout à l'heure.
- Let us thus consider the projectile once it begins to fall freely towards the Moon. It is evident from that moment until the moment it lands on the Earth or rather lands on the Moon…, it behaves exactly like our elevator—I should say our descender—from earlier.
- 2025 March 6, “Envoyée vers la Lune, une sonde privée américaine manque son alunissage”, in Ouest-France[2], archived from the original on 7 April 2025:
- Le patron de l’entreprise américaine Intuitive Machines a annoncé ce jeudi 6 mars 2025 que la sonde nommée Athena a probablement échoué à alunir près du pôle sud de la Lune.
- The head of the American company Intuitive Machines announced this Thursday, March 6, 2025, that the probe named Athena likely failed to land near the Moon's south pole.
Conjugation
This is a regular verb of the second conjugation, like finir, choisir, and most other verbs with infinitives ending in -ir. One salient feature of this conjugation is the repeated appearance of the infix -iss-.
Conjugation of alunir (see also Appendix:French verbs)
| infinitive | simple | alunir | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| compound | avoir + past participle | ||||||
| present participle or gerund1 | simple | alunissant /a.ly.ni.sɑ̃/ | |||||
| compound | ayant + past participle | ||||||
| past participle | aluni /a.ly.ni/ | ||||||
| singular | plural | ||||||
| first | second | third | first | second | third | ||
| indicative | je (j’) | tu | il, elle, on | nous | vous | ils, elles | |
| (simple tenses) |
present | alunis /a.ly.ni/ |
alunis /a.ly.ni/ |
alunit /a.ly.ni/ |
alunissons /a.ly.ni.sɔ̃/ |
alunissez /a.ly.ni.se/ |
alunissent /a.ly.nis/ |
| imperfect | alunissais /a.ly.ni.sɛ/ |
alunissais /a.ly.ni.sɛ/ |
alunissait /a.ly.ni.sɛ/ |
alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/ |
alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/ |
alunissaient /a.ly.ni.sɛ/ | |
| past historic2 | alunis /a.ly.ni/ |
alunis /a.ly.ni/ |
alunit /a.ly.ni/ |
alunîmes /a.ly.nim/ |
alunîtes /a.ly.nit/ |
alunirent /a.ly.niʁ/ | |
| future | alunirai /a.ly.ni.ʁe/ |
aluniras /a.ly.ni.ʁa/ |
alunira /a.ly.ni.ʁa/ |
alunirons /a.ly.ni.ʁɔ̃/ |
alunirez /a.ly.ni.ʁe/ |
aluniront /a.ly.ni.ʁɔ̃/ | |
| conditional | alunirais /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/ |
alunirais /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/ |
alunirait /a.ly.ni.ʁɛ/ |
alunirions /a.ly.ni.ʁjɔ̃/ |
aluniriez /a.ly.ni.ʁje/ |
aluniraient /a.ly.ni.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 | alunisse /a.ly.nis/ |
alunisses /a.ly.nis/ |
alunisse /a.ly.nis/ |
alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/ |
alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/ |
alunissent /a.ly.nis/ |
| imperfect2 | alunisse /a.ly.nis/ |
alunisses /a.ly.nis/ |
alunît /a.ly.ni/ |
alunissions /a.ly.ni.sjɔ̃/ |
alunissiez /a.ly.ni.sje/ |
alunissent /a.ly.nis/ | |
| (compound tenses) |
past | present subjunctive of avoir + past participle | |||||
| pluperfect2 | imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| imperative | – | – | – | ||||
| simple | — | alunis /a.ly.ni/ |
— | alunissons /a.ly.ni.sɔ̃/ |
alunissez /a.ly.ni.se/ |
— | |
| 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
- alunissage
- alunisseur
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Etymology and history of “alunir”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Further reading
- “alunir”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.