dire

🗣️

Meaning

1. to say, to tell (to express through speech)
2. to tell (to order, to advise)
3. to say, to tell (to set out in writing)
4. to say (often used in the sense of responding to an objection)
5. to say, to tell of (to celebrate, to sing, to narrate)
6. to say, to tell (to deliver, to recite)
7. to say, (figuratively) to seem like, to look like (to judge, to believe, to think)
8. to mean, to say, to state (to denote, to signify, to indicate, to mark)
9. to say, to tell (used when speaking of actions, of gestures, of looks, etc., that demonstrate someone's thinking)
10. (informal) to call out (to denounce)
11. to say (to express what one thinks, what one feels, what one sees)
12. to say (to signify, to be used for a word, a phrase, a sentence)
13. to say (to claim, to assure that one has a certain quality)
14. to say to oneself, to think to oneself, to tell oneself, to think (to make this or that reflection, to have this or that thought, to make this or that reasoning within oneself)
15. (informal) to be of interest to, to interest [with à ‘someone’], to be up for, to be interested, to like to, to feel like (to be okay with, to be tempted by)
16. (informal) to sound familiar

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/diʁ/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French dire, from Old French dire, from Latin dīcō, from Proto-Italic *deikō, from Proto-Indo-European *déyḱti (“to show, point out”).