Meaning of vouvoy | Babel Free

Definitions

To address (someone) in French using the formal second-person pronoun vous.

rare

Examples

“Americans are practically on a first-name basis with the president of the United States, after all, unlike the French, who when they’re not busy vouvoying one another are addressing one another as madame or monsieur, concealing their first names like ATM codes.”

““But I thought superiors can tutoyer those under them.” “They can. Sometimes. Take Officer Kaczmarek for example. He tutoye’s some instructors, and some do it back to him. But not all of them. My director asked me to tutoyer him because we’re part of the same administrative team. There are three officers that I tutoyer. That’s part of the problem today. Children, for example, tutoyer almost everybody. I vouvoy’ed my grandparents.””

“Shakespeare’s audiences would doubtless have been more attuned to ‘thou-you’ shifts in stage dialogue than modern ones – though any non-native speaker of French who has made the error of ‘tutoying’ someone they should have ‘vouvoyed’ will have some idea of the effects that such shifts can have.”

CEFR level