fouiller
French, verb/fu.je/
fouiller is spelled F-O-U-I-L-L-E-R (8 letters) and appears 4.8 times per million words in written French, the 11,545th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Fouiller is a French verb meaning “to search (place, thing)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Pratiquer un creux dans la terre”.
What does fouiller mean in English?
verb
- 1
to search (place, thing)
- 2
to search, frisk (person)
- 3
to go into, investigate (question, issue)
- 4
to rummage, delve (dans in)
J'ai fouillé dans mon sac, mais je n'ai pas pu trouver mon portefeuille.
- 5
to go through one's pockets
- 6
to dig
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Pratiquer un creux dans la terre. 2. Creuser la terre en vue de chercher, de découvrir ce qui y est enfermé. 3. Explorer avec soin. 4. Examiner les poches ou les vêtements de quelqu’un pour y chercher quelque chose qu’il y aurait cachée.
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 fouiller
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- fouillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- fouillé participle past
- fouille first-person indicative present
- fouilles indicative present second-person
- fouillons first-person indicative plural
- fouillez indicative plural present
- fouillent indicative plural present
- fouillais first-person imperfect indicative
- fouillait imperfect indicative singular
- fouillions first-person imperfect indicative
- fouilliez imperfect indicative plural
- fouillaient imperfect indicative plural
- fouillai first-person historic indicative
- fouillas historic indicative past
- fouilla historic indicative past
- fouillâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce fouiller?
- /fu.je/
- \fu.je\
- [fu.je]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to fouiller
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is fouiller in French?
fouiller appears 4.8 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).