saisir
French, verb/sɛ.ziʁ/
saisir is spelled S-A-I-S-I-R (6 letters) and appears 20 times per million words in written French, the 3,835th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Saisir is a French verb meaning “to take hold of; to grab” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Prendre vivement, rapidement, délibérément, avec vigueur”.
What does saisir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to take hold of; to grab
- 2
to seize, to take (an illegal product), to capture
- 3
to grasp mentally; understand
- 4
to capture (screen or data)
- 5
to type (something) into a computer; to input
- 6
to record (something) in an account, ledger, etc.
- 7
to vest a court with a case; to refer a matter to a court
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Prendre vivement, rapidement, délibérément, avec vigueur. 2. Prendre une chose de manière à pouvoir la tenir, la porter, à ne pas la laisser échapper. 3. Inscrire de façon à avoir une trace tangible, comptabiliser, noter. 4. Discerner, concevoir nettement, comprendre.
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 saisir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- saisissant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- saisi participle past
- saisis first-person indicative present
- saisit indicative present singular
- saisissons first-person indicative plural
- saisissez indicative plural present
- saisissent indicative plural present
- saisissais first-person imperfect indicative
- saisissait imperfect indicative singular
- saisissions first-person imperfect indicative
- saisissiez imperfect indicative plural
- saisissaient imperfect indicative plural
- saisîmes first-person historic indicative
- saisîtes historic indicative past
- avoir saisi infinitive past
- en saisissant gerund present
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce saisir?
- /sɛ.ziʁ/
- /se.ziʁ/
- \sɛ.ziʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to saisir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is saisir in French?
saisir appears 20 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).