encourir
French, verb/ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ/
encourir is spelled E-N-C-O-U-R-I-R (8 letters) and appears about once in every 2 million words in written French, the 48,990th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Encourir is a French verb meaning “to incur (to expose oneself to something inconvenient)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Attirer sur soi, faciliter la survenue, la réalisation, d'un châtiment, d'une peine venant d’une autorité…”.
What does encourir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to incur (to expose oneself to something inconvenient)
- 2
to run [the risk], to bring upon (something unfavourable)
encourir le risque d'être rattrapé
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Attirer sur soi, faciliter la survenue, la réalisation, d'un châtiment, d'une peine venant d’une autorité supérieure, d'une pénalité, d'un jugement moral. Le sens de ce verbe contient une connotation de probabilité mais non de certitude : l'objet encouru n'est pas systématiquement réalisé (une peine encourue n'est pas systématiquement appliquée). 2. Mériter un châtiment, une peine, un jugement moral. 3. Risquer d'être condamné à une peine, risquer d'être sanctionné. 4. Être susceptible de devoir payer une somme.
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 encourir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- encourant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- encouru participle past
- encours first-person indicative present
- encourt indicative present singular
- encourons first-person indicative plural
- encourez indicative plural present
- encourent indicative plural present
- encourais first-person imperfect indicative
- encourait imperfect indicative singular
- encourions first-person imperfect indicative
- encouriez imperfect indicative plural
- encouraient imperfect indicative plural
- encourus first-person historic indicative
- encourut historic indicative past
- encourûmes first-person historic indicative
- encourûtes historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce encourir?
- /ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ/
- \ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ\
- [ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to encourir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is encourir in French?
encourir appears about once in every 2 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).