Noun: if
Gender: m
Hyphenation:
Sample Sentences
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Ce que l'on admirait surtout, c'étaient deux longs ifs couverts de lampions qui flanquaient une estrade où s'allaient tenir les autorités; […]. [1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:]
Nouns inflected like if
trichogramme,
wintergreen,
urinoir,
contrespionnage,
aréomètre,
palefroi,
whiskey,
whippin,
tee-shirt,
hypocycloïde,
surrisque,
lanternon,
dissentiment,
phonogramme,
phonographe,
trioxygène,
fétichisme,
synode,
synthé,
modérantisme, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Inherited from Middle French if, from Old French if, from northern Vulgar Latin *ivus (“yew tree”), from either Proto-Celtic *iwos or Proto-Germanic *īhwaz, both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eyHw-. Cognate with Breton ivin, Welsh ywen, Old Irish eó (in Celtic), English yew, Dutch ijf, German Low German Iev, German Eibe (in Germanic), and further with Russian ива (iva) etc. See: English Nouns '
yew', Dutch Nouns '
ijf', German Nouns '
Eibe', Russian Nouns '
ива'.
Translations