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rire

French, noun/ʁiʁ/

rire is a French masculine noun meaning “laugh” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Action de rire”.

What does rire mean in English?

verb

  1. 1

    to laugh

noun

  1. 1

    masculinelaugh

Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How French dictionaries define it

verb: 1. Marquer un sentiment de gaieté par un mouvement de la bouche accompagné souvent de bruit et par une expression correspondante des regards et des traits du visage. 2. Se divertir ; se réjouir. 3. Railler ; badiner ; ne pas parler ou ne pas agir sérieusement. 4. Être agréable, plaire, en parlant des choses.

noun: 1. Action de rire. 2. Son produit par cette action. 3. Humour, moyen par lequel on fait rire, situation ou procédé comique.

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 rire

  • avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
  • riant gerund participle present
  • ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
  • ri participle past
  • ris first-person indicative present
  • rit indicative present singular
  • rions first-person indicative plural
  • riez indicative plural present
  • rient indicative plural present
  • riais first-person imperfect indicative
  • riait imperfect indicative singular
  • riions first-person imperfect indicative
  • riiez imperfect indicative plural
  • riaient imperfect indicative plural
  • rîmes first-person historic indicative
  • rîtes historic indicative past
  • rirent historic indicative past
  • rirai first-person future indicative

Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

How do you pronounce rire?

  • /ʁiʁ/
  • \ʁiʁ\
  • [œ̃ ʁiʁ]

Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.

English words that translate to rire

Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.

How common is rire in French?

rire appears 62 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).