gâcher
French, verb
gâcher is spelled G-Â-C-H-E-R (6 letters) and appears 5.4 times per million words in written French, the 10,655th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Gâcher is a French verb meaning “to ruin, spoil, mar, wreck, waste” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, gacher is a different word: “alternative form of gâcher”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Délayer du plâtre, du mortier avec de l’eau”.
What does gâcher mean in English?
verb
- 1
to ruin, spoil, mar, wreck, waste
- 2
to mess up, botch, bungle
verb
- 1
alternative form of gâcher
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Délayer du plâtre, du mortier avec de l’eau. 2. Recouvrir de terre. 3. Faire un ouvrage grossièrement, négligemment, sans goût. 4. Rendre mauvais, inutilisable ou insupportable.
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 gâcher
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- gâchant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- gâché participle past
- gâche first-person indicative present
- gâches indicative present second-person
- gâchons first-person indicative plural
- gâchez indicative plural present
- gâchent indicative plural present
- gâchais first-person imperfect indicative
- gâchait imperfect indicative singular
- gâchions first-person imperfect indicative
- gâchiez imperfect indicative plural
- gâchaient imperfect indicative plural
- gâchai first-person historic indicative
- gâchas historic indicative past
- gâcha historic indicative past
- gâchâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to gâcher
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is gâcher in French?
gâcher appears 5.4 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).