ronger

French

Etymology

From Old French rongier, from a crossing of rungier (from Latin rūmigāre (“chew”)) with influence from a Vulgar Latin *rodicāre, itself from Latin rōdō (“to gnaw”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʁɔ̃.ʒe/

• audio

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Verb

ronger

1. to gnaw
2. to erode, to eat at

Conjugation

This is a regular -er verb, but the stem is written ronge- 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 ronger (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	ronger
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	rongeant /ʁɔ̃.ʒɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		rongé /ʁɔ̃.ʒe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	ronge /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	ronges /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	ronge /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	rongeons /ʁɔ̃.ʒɔ̃/	rongez /ʁɔ̃.ʒe/	rongent /ʁɔ̃ʒ/
	imperfect	rongeais /ʁɔ̃.ʒɛ/	rongeais /ʁɔ̃.ʒɛ/	rongeait /ʁɔ̃.ʒɛ/	rongions /ʁɔ̃.ʒjɔ̃/	rongiez /ʁɔ̃.ʒje/	rongeaient /ʁɔ̃.ʒɛ/
	past historic2	rongeai /ʁɔ̃.ʒe/	rongeas /ʁɔ̃.ʒa/	rongea /ʁɔ̃.ʒa/	rongeâmes /ʁɔ̃.ʒam/	rongeâtes /ʁɔ̃.ʒat/	rongèrent /ʁɔ̃.ʒɛʁ/
	future	rongerai /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁe/	rongeras /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁa/	rongera /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁa/	rongerons /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁɔ̃/	rongerez /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁe/	rongeront /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	rongerais /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	rongerais /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	rongerait /ʁɔ̃ʒ.ʁɛ/	rongerions /ʁɔ̃.ʒə.ʁjɔ̃/	rongeriez /ʁɔ̃.ʒə.ʁje/	rongeraient /ʁɔ̃ʒ.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	ronge /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	ronges /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	ronge /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	rongions /ʁɔ̃.ʒjɔ̃/	rongiez /ʁɔ̃.ʒje/	rongent /ʁɔ̃ʒ/
	imperfect2	rongeasse /ʁɔ̃.ʒas/	rongeasses /ʁɔ̃.ʒas/	rongeât /ʁɔ̃.ʒa/	rongeassions /ʁɔ̃.ʒa.sjɔ̃/	rongeassiez /ʁɔ̃.ʒa.sje/	rongeassent /ʁɔ̃.ʒas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	ronge /ʁɔ̃ʒ/	—	rongeons /ʁɔ̃.ʒɔ̃/	rongez /ʁɔ̃.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: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Derived terms

• ronger son frein
• rongeur
• se ronger les sangs

Further reading

• “ronger”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• rogner