tressaillir
French, verb/tʁe.sa.jiʁ/
tressaillir is spelled T-R-E-S-S-A-I-L-L-I-R (11 letters) and appears about once in every 13 million words in written French, the 118,416th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Tressaillir is a French verb meaning “to thrill, shiver, quiver” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Éprouver une agitation vive et passagère à la suite d’une émotion subite”.
What does tressaillir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to thrill, shiver, quiver
- 2
to vibrate
- 3
to twitch, start, shudder, jump
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Éprouver une agitation vive et passagère à la suite d’une émotion subite.
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 tressaillir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- tressaillant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- tressailli participle past
- tressaille first-person indicative present
- tressailles indicative present second-person
- tressaillons first-person indicative plural
- tressaillez indicative plural present
- tressaillent indicative plural present
- tressaillais first-person imperfect indicative
- tressaillait imperfect indicative singular
- tressaillions first-person imperfect indicative
- tressailliez imperfect indicative plural
- tressaillaient imperfect indicative plural
- tressaillis first-person historic indicative
- tressaillit historic indicative past
- tressaillîmes first-person historic indicative
- tressaillîtes historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce tressaillir?
- /tʁe.sa.jiʁ/
- \tʁe.sa.jiʁ\
- \tʁɛ.sa.jiʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is tressaillir in French?
tressaillir appears about once in every 13 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).