Starting, keeping going, stopping, and the words that say how something ended.
Practise this list
From these 33 words, as many per round as you like — up to all of them: first what is due today, then new ones. First you choose, then you fill the gap, then you write it yourself. Mistakes come back again shortly.
More about this list
The fourteenth entry is s’essouffler, and an English kitchen already holds the key to it. The verb is built on le souffle, breath, from souffler, to blow, which goes back to the Latin sufflare, to blow into. A « soufflé » is simply that verb’s past participle: the blown one, a dish puffed up by the air beaten into its eggs. English took the word for the dish and left the rest of the family behind. French kept all of it. Essoufflé is how you feel at the top of the stairs, and s’essouffler is to run short of breath, which is what a runner does on the last lap and what a reform does after its first winter. The two images meet in a phrase journalists like. When the excitement around a project or a candidate dies away, the paper reports that le soufflé est retombé, the soufflé has sunk, and the reader sees exactly what happened: all that height was air, and once the air went the thing was flat. So a project that s’essouffle is not short of money or goodwill; it is losing the breath that held it up.
The words
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Verb (11)
expérimenterto pilotVerbC2
Nous expérimentons le procédé dans un seul atelier.The new process is being piloted in a single workshop before anything else.
s’essoufflerto run out of steamVerbC2
La réforme s’essouffle après le premier hiver.After its first winter the reform began to run out of steam.
s’enliserto get bogged downVerbC2
La négociation s’enlise faute de nouvelle proposition.With no new offer on the table, the talks are getting bogged down.
ajournerto adjourn indefinitelyVerbC2
La séance a été ajournée sans nouvelle date.The hearing was adjourned indefinitely, and nobody knows when it will resume.
liquiderto wind upVerbC2
La société a été liquidée en quelques mois.Within a few months the firm had been wound up.
