former
French, verb/fɔʁ.me/
former is spelled F-O-R-M-E-R (6 letters) and appears 33 times per million words in written French, the 2,473rd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Former is a French verb meaning “to form (generic sense)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Créer en donnant l’être et la forme”.
What does former mean in English?
verb
- 1
to form (generic sense)
- 2
to shape (to make into a certain shape)
- 3
to train; to educate
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Créer en donnant l’être et la forme. 2. Produire ; constituer. 3. Se dit de la manière de faire, de composer les mots, ou de les modifier, de les varier. 4. Façonner en donnant une certaine forme ou une certaine figure.
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 former
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- formant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- formé participle past
- forme first-person indicative present
- formes indicative present second-person
- formons first-person indicative plural
- formez indicative plural present
- forment indicative plural present
- formais first-person imperfect indicative
- formait imperfect indicative singular
- formions first-person imperfect indicative
- formiez imperfect indicative plural
- formaient imperfect indicative plural
- formai first-person historic indicative
- formas historic indicative past
- forma historic indicative past
- formâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce former?
- /fɔʁ.me/
- \fɔʁ.me\
- [fɔʁ.me]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to former
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is former in French?
former appears 33 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).