voici
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French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Literally, “look here”. From vois (“see!, look!”), second-person singular imperative of voir (“to see, to look”) and ici (“here”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
voici (defective)
- here is
- Voici le fromage.
- Here's the cheese.
Usage notes[edit]
- Voici is a defective verb; its only conjugation is in the present indicative tense, even though it can appear in phrases that imply another tense.
- As a verb, it can take direct object pronouns:
- Tu m’as appelé, me voici! ― You called me, and here I am!
- It can also occur in relative clauses:
- l’homme que voici ― the man who is here/this man (right) here
- It is used to designate a person or object near the speaker, in contrast to voilà which is mainly used to introduce a slightly distant person or object.
- In face-to-face conversations where both participants can see the subject of the conversation, voici is often replaced by voilà.
Derived terms[edit]
Preposition[edit]
voici
See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- “voici”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.