reculer
French, verb/ʁə.ky.le/
reculer is a French verb meaning “to move back, to put back” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Tirer ou pousser un objet en arrière”.
What does reculer mean in English?
verb
- 1
to move back, to put back
- 2
to go backwards
- 3
to back down, to concede
- 4
to back off, to draw back, to retreat
- 5
to recede, to gradually disappear
- 6
to drop, to fall, to decline
- 7
to go astern
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Tirer ou pousser un objet en arrière. 2. Porter plus loin, déplacer les limites, les frontières. 3. Éloigner quelqu’un du but qu’il se propose, retarder, ajourner une affaire. 4. Sodomiser de nouveau.
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 reculer
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- reculant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- reculé participle past
- recule first-person indicative present
- recules indicative present second-person
- reculons first-person indicative plural
- reculez indicative plural present
- reculent indicative plural present
- reculais first-person imperfect indicative
- reculait imperfect indicative singular
- reculions first-person imperfect indicative
- reculiez imperfect indicative plural
- reculaient imperfect indicative plural
- reculai first-person historic indicative
- reculas historic indicative past
- recula historic indicative past
- reculâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce reculer?
- /ʁə.ky.le/
- \ʁə.ky.le\
- \ʁky.le\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to reculer
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is reculer in French?
reculer appears 7.4 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).