avoir
French, noun/a.vwaʁ/
avoir is spelled A-V-O-I-R (5 letters) and appears 1,202 times per million words in written French, the 84th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Avoir is a French masculine noun meaning “asset, possession” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Ce que possède un individu”.
What does avoir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to have; to own; to possess; to get
Near-synonym: posséder
- 2
to have (to experience or suffer from a state or condition)
avoir des relations sexuelles
- 3
to have (an age)
Elle a 19 ans.
- 4
used to form the compound tenses of most verbs, such as the perfect and pluperfect.
J'ai parlé.
- 5
to have (to), must
J'ai à vous parler.
- 6
(chiefly in se faire avoir) to have (to trick; to con)
Tu t'es fait avoir.
noun
- 1
masculineasset, possession
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Être en relation possessive, soit concrète ou abstraite, soit permanente ou occasionnelle, dont le possesseur est le sujet et le possédé est le complément d’objet direct. 2. Être dans un certain état, anormal. 3. Se procurer, obtenir quelque chose. 4. Tromper, berner, leurrer quelqu’un.
noun: 1. Ce que possède un individu. 2. Ensemble des biens et richesses appartenant à un individu ou à une personne morale, possession. 3. Somme d’argent qu’un établissement commercial (banque, entreprise, etc.) doit à son client, solde créditeur. 4. Le fait de posséder, par opposition au fait d'être ou de faire.
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 avoir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- ayant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- eu participle past
- ai first-person indicative present
- as indicative present second-person
- a indicative present singular
- avons first-person indicative plural
- avez indicative plural present
- ont indicative plural present
- avais first-person imperfect indicative
- avait imperfect indicative singular
- avions first-person imperfect indicative
- aviez imperfect indicative plural
- avaient imperfect indicative plural
- eus first-person historic indicative
- eut historic indicative past
- eûmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce avoir?
- /a.vwaʁ/
- [a.waɾ]
- [a.vwaɾ]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to avoir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is avoir in French?
avoir appears 1,202 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).