tirailler
French, verb/ti.ʁa.je/
tirailler is spelled T-I-R-A-I-L-L-E-R (9 letters) and appears about once in every 23 million words in written French, the 154,162nd most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Tirailler is a French verb meaning “to pull, to tug” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Tirer une personne à diverses reprises, avec importunité ou avec violence”.
What does tirailler mean in English?
verb
- 1
to pull, to tug
- 2
to tear somebody in two, to make somebody hesitate
- 3
to skirmish
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Tirer une personne à diverses reprises, avec importunité ou avec violence. 2. Importuner, harceler. 3. Tirer dans tous les sens sur quelque chose. 4. Tirer d’une arme à feu à diverses reprises, sans ordre et souvent sans effet.
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 tirailler
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- tiraillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- tiraillé participle past
- tiraille first-person indicative present
- tirailles indicative present second-person
- tiraillons first-person indicative plural
- tiraillez indicative plural present
- tiraillent indicative plural present
- tiraillais first-person imperfect indicative
- tiraillait imperfect indicative singular
- tiraillions first-person imperfect indicative
- tirailliez imperfect indicative plural
- tiraillaient imperfect indicative plural
- tiraillai first-person historic indicative
- tiraillas historic indicative past
- tirailla historic indicative past
- tiraillâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce tirailler?
- /ti.ʁa.je/
- \ti.ʁɑ.je\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is tirailler in French?
tirailler appears about once in every 23 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).