cette

• ceste, cête (obsolete)
• c'tte (colloquial)

From Middle French ceste, from Old French ceste, from Vulgar Latin *ecce ista, feminine of *ecce iste.

The loss of internal /s/ triggered compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. Due to the unstressed position of this pronoun, however, the length was soon lost again, which explains the spelling without a circumflex (though the form cête was occasionally used). Compare notre and le nôtre.

• IPA^(key): /sɛt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Homophones: cet, Cette, sept, set, Sète
• Rhymes: -ɛt

cette f

1. feminine singular of ce

• ce, c'
• cet, c't, c'tte

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

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkɛt.tɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈt͡ʃɛt̪.t̪e]

cette

1. second-person plural present active imperative of cedo (“give (it) to me!”)

• “cette”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cette”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.