lécher

From Middle French lecher, from Old French lechier, from a Vulgar Latin *liccāre (compare Italian leccare), itself probably from Frankish *likkōn. See English lick for more.

Alternatively from an early contraction of *ligicāre, denasalized from *lingicāre, from Classical Latin lingere. This is based on the analogy with *fīccāre (whence French ficher), generally derived from *fīgicāre, from fīgere. However, the last-mentioned etymology (while commonly accepted) is not inevitable and at any rate requires only two theoretical steps, rather than three.

• IPA^(key): /le.ʃe/

• Audio:

  (file)

lécher

1. to lick
2. (figurative, informal) to polish, to refine (one's work)

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 lécher-, reflecting the historic pronunciation /e/. In 1990, the French Academy recommended that it be written lècher-, 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.

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