devenir
French, noun/də.v(ə).niʁ/
devenir is spelled D-E-V-E-N-I-R (7 letters) and appears 115 times per million words in written French, the 718th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Devenir is a French masculine noun meaning “future” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Situation à venir, évolution future de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un, de plusieurs personnes, jugée comme…”.
What does devenir mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinefuture
verb
- 1
to become
- 2
to come from
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Situation à venir, évolution future de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un, de plusieurs personnes, jugée comme incertaine. 2. Mouvement par lequel une chose, un être se forme ou se transforme.
verb: 1. Commencer à être ce qu’on n’était pas ; passer d’une situation, d’un état à un autre. 2. Avoir tel ou tel sort, tel ou tel résultat, telle ou telle issue en marquant le doute, la conjecture, etc.
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 devenir
- devenirs plural
- dev'nir alternative
- être + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- devenant gerund participle present
- étant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- devenu participle past
- deviens first-person indicative present
- devient indicative present singular
- devenons first-person indicative plural
- devenez indicative plural present
- deviennent indicative plural present
- devenais first-person imperfect indicative
- devenait imperfect indicative singular
- devenions first-person imperfect indicative
- deveniez imperfect indicative plural
- devenaient imperfect indicative plural
- devins first-person historic indicative
- devint historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce devenir?
- /də.v(ə).niʁ/
- \dəv.niʁ\
- \də.və.niʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to devenir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is devenir in French?
devenir appears 115 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).