agir: Conjugation
The agir conjugation tables below show how to form the French verb agir according to tense and person. To listen to the pronunciation of a given tense of agir, click on the loudspeaker icon at the bottom of the table. See the notes on the conjugation of agir at the end of this page.
| Present | Perfect |
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| Imperfect | Pluperfect |
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| Future | Future-perfect |
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| Conditional | Conditional perfect |
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| Present subjunctive | Perfect subjunctive |
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| Past historic | Past anterior |
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This verb falls into the pattern commonly termed regular -ir verb. It is
characterised by the consonant -ss- which appears before any ending beginning with
a vowel (in the spelling) but not in the infinitive or past participle.
This is the pattern generally followed by verbs based on colours and some other
common adjectives (such as (to turn red, blush),
jaunir (to turn yellow),
grandir (to grow),
adoucir (to soften) etc.
Many English verbs ending in -ish also have French counterparts ending in -ir
and following this pattern (cf finir, polir,
vernir (to varnish), abolir,
ternir...
Around 300 verbs are reported to follow this pattern (Beescherelle (2006), la conjugaison pour tous).
The category is marginally productive:
- On analogy with other verbs of the category, very occasional -ir
neologisms are formed (cf amarsir);
- There is a very slight tendancy for irregular -ir verbs to "slip into"
the regular -ir pattern. In educated usage,
this happens in some senses for saillir
and ressortir in some senses, and sometimes for the
verb vêtir (Bescherelle, op cit, p. 27).
Other non-standard forms occasionally found include
vous bouillissez (instead of vous bouillez: see bouillir).