vouloir
French, noun/vu.lwaʁ/
vouloir is spelled V-O-U-L-O-I-R (7 letters) and appears 76 times per million words in written French, the 1,112th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Vouloir is a French masculine noun meaning “will” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Volonté, faculté de vouloir”.
What does vouloir mean in English?
verb
- 1
to want, wish, desire
Je veux voir le soleil.
- 2
to expect; to think; forms rhetorical questions, perhaps better translated to English by rephrasing with would or should
Qu'est-ce que vous voulez que j'en sache?
- 3
to see oneself as; to give the impression of, to seem
- 4
to please do something
noun
- 1
masculinewill
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Avoir l’intention, la volonté de faire quelque chose, s’y déterminer. 2. Avoir une volonté agissante, efficace. 3. Commander, exiger avec autorité. 4. Avoir autorité sur l’homme, en parlant des choses.
noun: 1. Volonté, faculté de vouloir. 2. Bienveillance, malveillance.
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 vouloir
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- voulant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- voulu participle past
- veux first-person indicative present
- veut indicative present singular
- voulons first-person indicative plural
- voulez indicative plural present
- veulent indicative plural present
- voulais first-person imperfect indicative
- voulait imperfect indicative singular
- voulions first-person imperfect indicative
- vouliez imperfect indicative plural
- voulaient imperfect indicative plural
- voulus first-person historic indicative
- voulut historic indicative past
- voulûmes first-person historic indicative
- voulûtes historic indicative past
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce vouloir?
- /vu.lwaʁ/
- \vu.lwaʁ\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to vouloir
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is vouloir in French?
vouloir appears 76 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).