tenailler
French, verb/tə.na.je/
tenailler is spelled T-E-N-A-I-L-L-E-R (9 letters) and appears about once in every 91 million words in written French, the 298,135th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Tenailler is a French verb meaning “to torture with pincers” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Tourmenter un criminel avec des tenailles ardentes”.
What does tenailler mean in English?
verb
- 1
to torture with pincers
- 2
to torment
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Tourmenter un criminel avec des tenailles ardentes. 2. Faire souffrir, causer une vive douleur.
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 tenailler
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- tenaillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- tenaillé participle past
- tenaille first-person indicative present
- tenailles indicative present second-person
- tenaillons first-person indicative plural
- tenaillez indicative plural present
- tenaillent indicative plural present
- tenaillais first-person imperfect indicative
- tenaillait imperfect indicative singular
- tenaillions first-person imperfect indicative
- tenailliez imperfect indicative plural
- tenaillaient imperfect indicative plural
- tenaillai first-person historic indicative
- tenaillas historic indicative past
- tenailla historic indicative past
- tenaillâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce tenailler?
- /tə.na.je/
- \tə.nɑ.je\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is tenailler in French?
tenailler appears about once in every 91 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).