fourbir
French, verb/fuʁ.biʁ/
fourbir is spelled F-O-U-R-B-I-R (7 letters) and appears about once in every 19 million words in written French, the 141,352nd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Fourbir is a French verb meaning “to furbish, burnish” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Rendre clair un objet de métal en le frottant”.
What does fourbir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to furbish, burnish
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Rendre clair un objet de métal en le frottant. 2. Assurer le nettoyage des pièces d’une maison. 3. Coïter, par analogie avec le mouvement de va-et-vient de celui qui fourbit une arme.
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 fourbir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- fourbissant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- fourbi participle past
- fourbis first-person indicative present
- fourbit indicative present singular
- fourbissons first-person indicative plural
- fourbissez indicative plural present
- fourbissent indicative plural present
- fourbissais first-person imperfect indicative
- fourbissait imperfect indicative singular
- fourbissions first-person imperfect indicative
- fourbissiez imperfect indicative plural
- fourbissaient imperfect indicative plural
- fourbîmes first-person historic indicative
- fourbîtes historic indicative past
- fourbirent historic indicative past
- fourbirai first-person future indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce fourbir?
- /fuʁ.biʁ/
- \fuʁ.biʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to fourbir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is fourbir in French?
fourbir appears about once in every 19 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).