naître
French, verb
naître is spelled N-A-Î-T-R-E (6 letters) and appears 8.9 times per million words in written French, the 7,293rd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Naître is a French verb meaning “to be born” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). Without its accent, naitre is a different word: “post-1990 spelling of naître”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Commencer à vivre ; venir au monde”.
What does naître mean in English?
verb
- 1
to be born
verb
- 1
post-1990 spelling of naître
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Commencer à vivre. 2. Venir au monde. 3. Provenir, avoir pour origine, être d'une certaine extraction. 4. Se trouver en naissant dans certaines conditions.
verb: 1. Commencer à vivre ; venir au monde. 2. Se trouver en naissant dans certaines conditions ; avoir des dispositions naturelles. 3. Tirer son origine, être d’une certaine extraction. 4. Mener l'opération de la vie divine par laquelle le Fils est engendré du Père de toute éternité.
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 naître
- être + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- naissant gerund participle present
- étant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- né participle past
- nais first-person indicative present
- naît indicative present singular
- naissons first-person indicative plural
- naissez indicative plural present
- naissent indicative plural present
- naissais first-person imperfect indicative
- naissait imperfect indicative singular
- naissions first-person imperfect indicative
- naissiez imperfect indicative plural
- naissaient imperfect indicative plural
- naquis first-person historic indicative
- naquit historic indicative past
- naquîmes first-person historic indicative
- naquîtes historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to naître
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is naître in French?
naître appears 8.9 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).