désigner
French, verb
désigner is spelled D-É-S-I-G-N-E-R (8 letters) and appears 14 times per million words in written French, the 5,118th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Désigner is a French verb meaning “to designate” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, designer is a different word: “designer”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Indiquer une personne ou une chose par des expressions, par des marques qui la font reconnaître”.
What does désigner mean in English?
verb
- 1
to designate
- 2
to indicate (symbol, abbreviation, etc.)
- 3
to connote (to signify beyond principal meaning)
noun
- 1
masculinedesigner
verb
- 1
to design
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Indiquer une personne ou une chose par des expressions, par des marques qui la font reconnaître. 2. Être le signe, le symbole de quelque chose. 3. Fixer, déterminer. 4. Destiner à quelque dignité, à quelque charge, à quelque fonction.
noun: 1. Styliste, concepteur utilisant les méthodes du design.
verb: 1. Concevoir en utilisant les méthodes du design.
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 désigner
- designers plural
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- designant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- designé participle past
- designe first-person indicative present
- designes indicative present second-person
- designons first-person indicative plural
- designez indicative plural present
- designent indicative plural present
- designais first-person imperfect indicative
- designait imperfect indicative singular
- designions first-person imperfect indicative
- designiez imperfect indicative plural
- designaient imperfect indicative plural
- designai first-person historic indicative
- designas historic indicative past
- designa historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to désigner
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is désigner in French?
désigner appears 14 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).