abêtir
French, verb/a.bɛ.tiʁ/
abêtir is spelled A-B-Ê-T-I-R (6 letters) and appears about once in every 52 million words in written French, the 229,021st most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Abêtir is a French verb meaning “to dumb down, render dumb, dim-witted; to deaden the mind of” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Rendre bête, stupide”.
What does abêtir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to dumb down, render dumb, dim-witted; to deaden the mind of
- 2
to become dim-witted and foolish
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Rendre bête, stupide. 2. Devenir bête.
verb: 1. Variante orthographique de abêtir.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of abêtir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- abêtissant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- abêti participle past
- abêtis first-person indicative present
- abêtit indicative present singular
- abêtissons first-person indicative plural
- abêtissez indicative plural present
- abêtissent indicative plural present
- abêtissais first-person imperfect indicative
- abêtissait imperfect indicative singular
- abêtissions first-person imperfect indicative
- abêtissiez imperfect indicative plural
- abêtissaient imperfect indicative plural
- abêtîmes first-person historic indicative
- abêtîtes historic indicative past
- avoir abêti infinitive past
- en abêtissant gerund present
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce abêtir?
- /a.bɛ.tiʁ/
- /a.be.tiʁ/
- \a.bɛ.tiʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is abêtir in French?
abêtir appears about once in every 52 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).