dénouer
French, verb/de.nwe/
dénouer is spelled D-É-N-O-U-E-R (7 letters) and appears about once in every 1 million words in written French, the 39,210th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Dénouer is a French verb meaning “to undo (a knot), to unknot” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Défaire ce qui forme un nœud, ce qui est noué, ou ce qui est retenu par un nœud”.
What does dénouer mean in English?
verb
- 1
to undo (a knot), to unknot
- 2
to untangle, to unravel (a situation)
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Défaire ce qui forme un nœud, ce qui est noué, ou ce qui est retenu par un nœud. 2. Rendre plus souple, plus agile. 3. Démêler, développer ; et il se dit principalement en parlant du nœud, de l’intrigue d’une pièce de théâtre.
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 dénouer
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- dénouant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- dénoué participle past
- dénoue first-person indicative present
- dénoues indicative present second-person
- dénouons first-person indicative plural
- dénouez indicative plural present
- dénouent indicative plural present
- dénouais first-person imperfect indicative
- dénouait imperfect indicative singular
- dénouions first-person imperfect indicative
- dénouiez imperfect indicative plural
- dénouaient imperfect indicative plural
- dénouai first-person historic indicative
- dénouas historic indicative past
- dénoua historic indicative past
- dénouâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce dénouer?
- /de.nwe/
- \de.nwe\
- [de.nwe]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to dénouer
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is dénouer in French?
dénouer appears about once in every 1 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).