tomber

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Middle French tomber, from Old French tumber, itself either of expressive/onomatopoeic origin (compare also Catalan and Portuguese tombar; Spanish tumbar; Romanian tumbă; Italian tombolare etc.), or alternatively possibly from a Frankish *tūmōn (to rotate, reel, sway), from Proto-Germanic *tūmōną (to turn, rotate), of uncertain origin. More at tumb.

Displaced the native choir, inherited from cadō.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /tɔ̃.be/
  • Hyphenation: tom‧ber
  • Audio:(file)
  • Rhymes: -e

Verb

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tomber

  1. to fall
    Un tamis placé à l’intérieur du dispositif empêchera les choses de tomber dans le tube.
    A screen placed inside the device will keep things from falling into the tube.
  2. to come down
    Laisse la pluie tomber sur nous et recouvre le pays de cette eau qui donne la vie.
    Let the rains come down upon us and cover the land with life-giving water.
  3. (intransitive) to bump into, to come across; to be received by (when making a telephone call) [with sur ‘someone’]
    J’ai téléphoné à Robert mais je suis tombé sur Marie.I phoned Robert but I got Marie.
  4. (in idioms) to become, to get
    tomber amoureuxto fall in love
    tomber maladeto fall ill, to get sick
    tomber enceinteto fall pregnant, to get pregnant

Conjugation

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  • This verb uses the auxiliary verb avoir when used transitively (or with a transitive sense, even when the complement is omitted); otherwise (when it is intransitive), it uses être.

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old French tumber.

Verb

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tomber

  1. to fall

Conjugation

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  • Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants

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  • French: tomber, tumer (dialectal)