French Verbs with -DRE
Around 50 French verbs fall into a pattern commonly known as the "regular -re verbs" in many English-speaking grammar books.
In other text books, including French-speaking grammars, these verbs are classified as a variant of "verbs of the third group" or simply "group 3 verbs".
Although most French -RE verbs are not in fact regular, there is a pattern to many French verbs ending in -DRE.
Verbs in this pattern have a d throughout their spelling and a characteristic [d] sound everywhere except the singular present tense. They all have past participles ending in -u.
More specifically, -DRE verbs that follow this pattern include verbs whose infinitive ends with:
- -endre and -andre
- -ondre
- -erdre and -ordre
(Note that some common verbs ending in -DRE don't conjugate in this pattern and these are called irregular verbs. "Prendre" for example, despite ending in -endre, does not follow this pattern and is irregular. Additionally, verbs ending in -aindre, -eindre or -oudre do not follow this pattern, for example, "craindre" and "résoudre".)
Typical verbs that belong to this group are:
| vendre | to sell |
| défendre | to prohibit, to defend |
| descendre | to go/come down |
| dépendre de | to depend on |
| entendre | to hear |
| répandre | to spread |
| attendre | to wait |
| répondre | to reply, to respond |
| correspondre | to correspond |
| pondre | to lay |
| fondre | to melt |
| mordre | to bite |
| tordre | to twist |
