gîter
French, verb
gîter is spelled G-Î-T-E-R (5 letters) and appears about once in every 45 million words in written French, the 212,128th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Gîter is a French verb meaning “to list, heel over” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, giter is a different word: “post-1990 spelling of gîter”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Demeurer dans un gîte”.
What does gîter mean in English?
verb
- 1
to list, heel over
- 2
archaicto (take) shelter, rest
verb
- 1
post-1990 spelling of gîter
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Demeurer dans un gîte.
verb: 1. S'incliner sur un bord (en parlant d'un bateau), avoir de la gîte, de la bande.
verb: 1. Variante orthographique de gîter.
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 gîter
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- gîtant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- gîté participle past
- gîte first-person indicative present
- gîtes indicative present second-person
- gîtons first-person indicative plural
- gîtez indicative plural present
- gîtent indicative plural present
- gîtais first-person imperfect indicative
- gîtait imperfect indicative singular
- gîtions first-person imperfect indicative
- gîtiez imperfect indicative plural
- gîtaient imperfect indicative plural
- gîtai first-person historic indicative
- gîtas historic indicative past
- gîta historic indicative past
- gîtâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is gîter in French?
gîter appears about once in every 45 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).