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douter

French, verb/du.te/

douter is a French verb meaning “to doubt” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Être dans l’incertitude, n’être pas sûr”.

What does douter mean in English?

verb

  1. 1

    to doubt

    Il ne faut pas douter de la bonne foi de son interlocuteur.

  2. 2

    to suspect, to have an inkling

    Je me doutais qu'il n'allait pas bien, mais je ne savais pas que c'était à ce point-là.

Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How French dictionaries define it

verb: 1. Être dans l’incertitude, n’être pas sûr. 2. Être troublé dans sa foi, la mettre en cause, en parlant des dogmes religieux, des opinions philosophiques. 3. Hésiter, balancer. 4. Imaginer, penser, croire.

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 douter

  • avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
  • doutant gerund participle present
  • ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
  • douté participle past
  • doute first-person indicative present
  • doutes indicative present second-person
  • doutons first-person indicative plural
  • doutez indicative plural present
  • doutent indicative plural present
  • doutais first-person imperfect indicative
  • doutait imperfect indicative singular
  • doutions first-person imperfect indicative
  • doutiez imperfect indicative plural
  • doutaient imperfect indicative plural
  • doutai first-person historic indicative
  • doutas historic indicative past
  • douta historic indicative past
  • doutâmes first-person historic indicative

Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

How do you pronounce douter?

  • /du.te/
  • \du.te\
  • [du.te]

Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.

English words that translate to douter

Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.

How common is douter in French?

douter appears 13 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).