rançonner
French, verb/ʁɑ̃.sɔ.ne/
rançonner is spelled R-A-N-Ç-O-N-N-E-R (9 letters) and appears about once in every 11 million words in written French, the 109,514th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Rançonner is a French verb meaning “to ransom” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Mettre à rançon”.
What does rançonner mean in English?
verb
- 1
to ransom
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Mettre à rançon. 2. Réclamer une rançon, en parlant du vainqueur qui rendait ses prisonniers à la liberté, moyennant une certaine somme ou d’un corsaire qui exigeait un paiement en argent pour relâcher un vaisseau marchand capturé. 3. Action d’exiger par force une somme d’argent, une contribution de guerre, etc. 4. Exiger de quelqu’un plus qu’il n’est juste ou raisonnable.
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 rançonner
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- rançonnant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- rançonné participle past
- rançonne first-person indicative present
- rançonnes indicative present second-person
- rançonnons first-person indicative plural
- rançonnez indicative plural present
- rançonnent indicative plural present
- rançonnais first-person imperfect indicative
- rançonnait imperfect indicative singular
- rançonnions first-person imperfect indicative
- rançonniez imperfect indicative plural
- rançonnaient imperfect indicative plural
- rançonnai first-person historic indicative
- rançonnas historic indicative past
- rançonna historic indicative past
- rançonnâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce rançonner?
- /ʁɑ̃.sɔ.ne/
- \ʁɑ̃.sɔ.ne\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to rançonner
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is rançonner in French?
rançonner appears about once in every 11 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).