désespérer

From dés- +‎ espérer (“to hope”); cf. also Old French desperer.

• IPA^(key): /de.zɛs.pe.ʁe/

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désespérer

1. (intransitive) to despair (feel hopeless)

This verb is conjugated like céder. It is a regular -er verb, except that its last stem vowel alternates between /e/ (written 'é') and /ɛ/ (written 'è'), with the latter being used before mute 'e'. One special case is the future stem, used in the future and the conditional. Before 1990, the future stem of such verbs was written désespérer-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written désespèrer-, reflecting the now common pronunciation /ɛ/, thereby making this distinction consistent throughout the conjugation (and also matching in this regard the conjugations of verbs like lever and jeter). Both spellings are in use today, and both are therefore given here.

• désespoir
• désespérance
• désespéré
• désespérément

• “désespérer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.