plaire

Meaning

1. to please, to appeal to (usually translated into English as like with exchange of subject and object)
2. to enjoy (oneself)

Pronounced as (IPA)

/plɛʁ/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French plaire, from Old French plaire, from plaisir, from Latin placēre. The original infinitive now became a noun, and the infinitive ending was changed to -aire by analogy with the future and conditional forms in plair-. The future stem came from Latin pluperfect stem placuer- (placueram, placuerās, ...); some other verbs also use the pluperfect stem for their future stems (but not in the case of pluperfect forms containing -s- or -x-), for example tenir, tiendrai (if using the infinitive form, it results on expected *tenirai < tenī́re hábeō), see also Appendix:French verbs#Origins.