vouvoie

V4O1U1V4O1I1E1

A form of vouvoy — To address (someone) in French using the formal second-person pronoun vous.

Scrabble 13

Meanings

verbvouvoie (third-person singular simple present vouvoies, present participle vouvoying, simple past and past participle vouvoied)

present singular third person vouvoies · participle present vouvoying · participle past vouvoied · past vouvoied

  1. alternativeAlternative form of vouvoy.

    At this, Marianne makes a sudden ‘confession’ that she and her husband have continued to vouvoie Linda and Jean-Pierre, although they have known them for years and, by implication, fulfil the criterion of getting on well.

    2007, Penelope Gardner-Chloros, “Tu/vous Choices: An ‘Act of Identity’?”, in Wendy Ayres-Bennett, Mari C. Jones, editors, The French Language and Questions of Identity (Studies in Linguistics 4), Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing, →ISBN, page 109
    2 more examples

    My hairdresser does not like this, for instance, and will often vouvoie even clients younger than him if he doesn't know them.[…]In the local gyms I've been to there has been a very "copain copain" ambience and tutoiement has been the rule, in the changing rooms as elsewhere. I noticed for instance that at my free trial session the personnel vouvoied me but once I had signed up I was tu.[…]Alex immediately eliminated one of the suspects because the murdered woman would have vouvoied her.

    1997 March 1, Éamonn McManus, “NO CARRIER”, in soc.motss (Usenet)

    Tutoiement of a person who would generally be “vouvoie-d” is a deliberate sign of disrespect, a provocation.[…]Charlotte is expected to vouvoie her French in-laws despite having been shown an extensive collection of nude photographs of her husband’s mother.

    2014, Kelly Rogers, Extraordinary, Ordinary Women: Questions of Expatriate Identity in Contemporary American Paris, University Press of America, →ISBN, page 56
Cite this entry
APA

vouvoie. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vouvoie

MLA

“vouvoie.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vouvoie. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vouvoie,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vouvoie.

Source: vouvoie on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.