plier
French, verb/pli.je/
plier is spelled P-L-I-E-R (5 letters) and appears 6.6 times per million words in written French, the 9,132nd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Plier is a French verb meaning “to fold (bend (something) over; arrange by folding)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Mettre en double une ou plusieurs fois, en parlant du linge, des étoffes, du papier, etc”.
What does plier mean in English?
verb
- 1
to fold (bend (something) over; arrange by folding)
- 2
to fold up
- 3
to bend
- 4
to mess up; to do in; to damage
- 5
to kill, kill off (a game)
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Mettre en double une ou plusieurs fois, en parlant du linge, des étoffes, du papier, etc. 2. Rabattre l’une sur l’autre les parties d’un objet. 3. Courber, fléchir. 4. Assujettir, soumettre, faire céder, accoutumer.
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 plier
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- pliant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- plié participle past
- plie first-person indicative present
- plies indicative present second-person
- plions first-person indicative plural
- pliez indicative plural present
- plient indicative plural present
- pliais first-person imperfect indicative
- pliait imperfect indicative singular
- pliions first-person imperfect indicative
- pliiez imperfect indicative plural
- pliaient imperfect indicative plural
- pliai first-person historic indicative
- plias historic indicative past
- plia historic indicative past
- pliâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce plier?
- /pli.je/
- \pli.je\
- [pli.je]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to plier
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is plier in French?
plier appears 6.6 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).