Skip to content

fléchir

to bend, to flex

verb fleh-SHEER Rare
Body & Health Movement

Also means

to yield, to give way

Usage Note

Fléchir covers both physical bending (fléchir le genou = to bend the knee) and figurative yielding under pressure. In grammar class, fléchir is also used for 'to inflect' a word. The noun flexion derives from the same Latin root.

Examples

"Il a fléchi sous la pression de ses parents."

Natural Translation

He gave way under his parents' pressure.

Free starter pack

Building your French vocabulary?

Get the 100 most common French words as a free PDF — one email, no spam.

Explore French by topic