réduire

Inherited from Middle French reduire, from Old French reduire, an alteration or Gallicization of Latin redūcere (“reduce”), after conduire.

• IPA^(key): /ʁe.dɥiʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

réduire

1. (transitive) to reduce
2. (transitive) to cut (prices); to shorten (text); to reduce, scale down (pictures, etc.)
3. (transitive) to reduce (someone) [with à ‘to’]

   Je les ai réduits en esclavage.

   I reduced them to slavery.

4. (transitive) to reduce (something) [with en ‘to’]

   La maison fut réduite en cendres.

   The house was reduced to ashes.

5. (transitive, medicine) to reduce, set
6. (transitive, chemistry, cooking) to reduce
7. (transitive, military) to capture (a place), to quell (opposition etc.)
8. (pronominal) to amount to, to come down to [with à ‘to’]

   Les copules, qui se réduisent au rôle de lien syntaxique entre sujet et attribut en estompant leur sémantique propre, sont souvent des verbes d’état.

   Copulas, which amount only to syntactic links between subject and complement since their own semantic content has been lost, are often stative verbs.

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