limoger
French
Etymology
Limoges + -er. From the town of Limoges, which was far away from the World War I front and where General Joseph Joffre, Commander-in-Chief of the French forces from 1914 to 1916, consequently sent senior staff whom he considered useless and had relieved from actual command. Attested since 1916.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /li.mɔ.ʒe/
Audio (Lyon, France) (file)
Verb
limoger
- (transitive) to dismiss (usually of senior staff, such as a minister, general, bishop, ambassador, etc), kick upstairs
- 1927, Marcel Proust, Le Temps retrouvé [Time Regained] (À la recherche du temps perdu):
- Mme Verdurin disait : « C'est désolant, je vais téléphoner à Bontemps de faire le nécessaire pour demain, on a encore « caviardé » toute la fin de l'article de Norpois et simplement parce qu'il laissait entendre qu'on avait « limogé » Percin. »
- Mme Verdurin said, “It is deplorable, I shall telephone to Bontemps to do what is necessary to-morrow. They have again ‘censored’ the whole end of Norpois' article simply because he let it be understood that they had ‘dismissed’ Percin.”
- 2021 June 30, “Corée du Nord : plusieurs hauts responsables limogés après un «grave incident» lié au Covid-19 [North Korea: several senior officials sacked after a "serious incident" linked to Covid-19]”, in Le Figaro:
- Le dirigeant nord-coréen Kim Jong Un a limogé plusieurs hauts responsables du pays en raison d'un «grave incident» lié à la lutte contre la pandémie de Covid-19, a annoncé mercredi 30 juin l'agence officielle KCNA.
- The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sacked several senior officials of the country because of a "serious incident" linked to the struggle against the Covid-19 pandemic, reported the official agency KCNA on Wednesday 30 June.
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Conjugation
This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written limoge- before endings that begin with -a- or -o- (to indicate that the -g- is a "soft" /ʒ/ and not a "hard" /ɡ/). This spelling-change occurs in all verbs in -ger, such as neiger and manger.
Conjugation of limoger (see also Appendix:French verbs)
| infinitive | simple | limoger | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| compound | avoir + past participle | ||||||
| present participle or gerund1 | simple | limogeant /li.mɔ.ʒɑ̃/ | |||||
| compound | ayant + past participle | ||||||
| past participle | limogé /li.mɔ.ʒe/ | ||||||
| singular | plural | ||||||
| first | second | third | first | second | third | ||
| indicative | je (j’) | tu | il, elle, on | nous | vous | ils, elles | |
| (simple tenses) | present | limoge /li.mɔʒ/ | limoges /li.mɔʒ/ | limoge /li.mɔʒ/ | limogeons /li.mɔ.ʒɔ̃/ | limogez /li.mɔ.ʒe/ | limogent /li.mɔʒ/ |
| imperfect | limogeais /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/ | limogeais /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/ | limogeait /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/ | limogions /li.mɔ.ʒjɔ̃/ | limogiez /li.mɔ.ʒje/ | limogeaient /li.mɔ.ʒɛ/ | |
| past historic2 | limogeai /li.mɔ.ʒe/ | limogeas /li.mɔ.ʒa/ | limogea /li.mɔ.ʒa/ | limogeâmes /li.mɔ.ʒam/ | limogeâtes /li.mɔ.ʒat/ | limogèrent /li.mɔ.ʒɛʁ/ | |
| future | limogerai /li.mɔʒ.ʁe/ | limogeras /li.mɔʒ.ʁa/ | limogera /li.mɔʒ.ʁa/ | limogerons /li.mɔʒ.ʁɔ̃/ | limogerez /li.mɔʒ.ʁe/ | limogeront /li.mɔʒ.ʁɔ̃/ | |
| conditional | limogerais /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/ | limogerais /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/ | limogerait /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/ | limogerions /li.mɔ.ʒə.ʁjɔ̃/ | limogeriez /li.mɔ.ʒə.ʁje/ | limogeraient /li.mɔʒ.ʁɛ/ | |
| (compound tenses) | present perfect | present indicative of avoir + past participle | |||||
| pluperfect | imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| past anterior2 | past historic of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| future perfect | future of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| conditional perfect | conditional of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| subjunctive | que je (j’) | que tu | qu’il, qu’elle | que nous | que vous | qu’ils, qu’elles | |
| (simple tenses) | present | limoge /li.mɔʒ/ | limoges /li.mɔʒ/ | limoge /li.mɔʒ/ | limogions /li.mɔ.ʒjɔ̃/ | limogiez /li.mɔ.ʒje/ | limogent /li.mɔʒ/ |
| imperfect2 | limogeasse /li.mɔ.ʒas/ | limogeasses /li.mɔ.ʒas/ | limogeât /li.mɔ.ʒa/ | limogeassions /li.mɔ.ʒa.sjɔ̃/ | limogeassiez /li.mɔ.ʒa.sje/ | limogeassent /li.mɔ.ʒas/ | |
| (compound tenses) | past | present subjunctive of avoir + past participle | |||||
| pluperfect2 | imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle | ||||||
| imperative | – | – | – | ||||
| simple | — | limoge /li.mɔʒ/ | — | limogeons /li.mɔ.ʒɔ̃/ | limogez /li.mɔ.ʒe/ | — | |
| compound | — | simple imperative of avoir + past participle | — | simple imperative of avoir + past participle | simple imperative of avoir + past participle | — | |
| 1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en. | |||||||
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way:
(Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81). | |||||||
Further reading
- “limoger”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.