persifler
French, verb/pɛʁ.si.fle/
persifler is spelled P-E-R-S-I-F-L-E-R (9 letters) and appears about once in every 41 million words in written French, the 202,924th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Persifler is a French verb meaning “to mock someone by way of feigned politeness and kindness with ironic, veiled insults, or by apparently light-hearted teasing with a…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Tourner une personne, une doctrine, une réunion en ridicule, avec une apparence d’aménité, sur un ton de…”.
What does persifler mean in English?
verb
- 1
to mock someone by way of feigned politeness and kindness with ironic, veiled insults, or by apparently light-hearted teasing with a harsher double meaning, intended to be understood by onlookers but not the person mocked
- 2
to mock someone generally; to say in mockery
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Tourner une personne, une doctrine, une réunion en ridicule, avec une apparence d’aménité, sur un ton de badinage. 2. Parler avec ironie, avec moquerie.
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 persifler
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- persiflant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- persiflé participle past
- persifle first-person indicative present
- persifles indicative present second-person
- persiflons first-person indicative plural
- persiflez indicative plural present
- persiflent indicative plural present
- persiflais first-person imperfect indicative
- persiflait imperfect indicative singular
- persiflions first-person imperfect indicative
- persifliez imperfect indicative plural
- persiflaient imperfect indicative plural
- persiflai first-person historic indicative
- persiflas historic indicative past
- persifla historic indicative past
- persiflâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce persifler?
- /pɛʁ.si.fle/
- \pɛʁ.si.fle\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is persifler in French?
persifler appears about once in every 41 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).