savoir
French, noun/sa.vwaʁ/
savoir is spelled S-A-V-O-I-R (6 letters) and appears 324 times per million words in written French, the 250th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Savoir is a French masculine noun meaning “knowledge” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Ensemble des connaissances acquises par l’étude, par l’expérience”.
What does savoir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to know (something)
Savais-tu qu'il parle si bien l'anglais?
- 2
to know how (to do something)
Savez-vous nager?
- 3
to be able to, to be apt to (especially in the negative or interrogative conditional; used in the positive in Belgium)
Il ne saurait tarder que...
- 4
to find out
Nous devons savoir pourquoi il a fait ça.
noun
- 1
masculineknowledge
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Appréhender par l’esprit ou la connaissance ; connaître de façon certaine. 2. Avoir dans la mémoire. 3. Posséder quelque science, quelque art, être instruit, habile en quelque profession, en quelque exercice. 4. Avoir l’esprit orné et rempli de choses utiles.
noun: 1. Ensemble des connaissances acquises par l’étude, par l’expérience.
conjunction: 1. À savoir. 2. Pour marquer qu’on doute que quelque chose. 3. Pour marquer qu’on veut en savoir davantage.
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 savoir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- sachant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- su participle past
- sais first-person indicative present
- sait indicative present singular
- savons first-person indicative plural
- savez indicative plural present
- savent indicative plural present
- savais first-person imperfect indicative
- savait imperfect indicative singular
- savions first-person imperfect indicative
- saviez imperfect indicative plural
- savaient imperfect indicative plural
- sus first-person historic indicative
- sut historic indicative past
- sûmes first-person historic indicative
- sûtes historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce savoir?
- /sa.vwaʁ/
- \sa.vwaʁ\
- [sa.vwaʁ]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to savoir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is savoir in French?
savoir appears 324 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).