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# define — English to French

How English *define* is translated into French in open, checked parallel texts: 1 translation with example sentences.

What it means: [define in the Elamur Dictionary](https://dictionary.elamur.ai/free/en/english/define/).

Sentence pairs counted, by form: define (27 609), defines (13 457). By style: everyday 27 · biblical 1 · parliamentary 2 905 · legal and administrative 4 914 · UN documents 33 219.

## définit

Used about 26 249 times in the texts (everyday ≈ 8 · parliamentary ≈ 2 088 · legal and administrative ≈ 3 737 · UN documents ≈ 20 416). Forms: définir, définit.

- Love is hard to **define**.
  L'amour est difficile à **définir**.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by patgfisher and sicerabibax · checked, community translation · [\#4809779](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/4809779) [\#4811799](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/4811799))

- Who **defines** these specific issues?
  Qui **définit** ces «certains» aspects?
  ([Europarl v8](https://www.statmt.org/europarl/) · Source: European Parliament proceedings, Europarl v8 (Koehn 2005) via OPUS (Tiedemann 2012) · checked, professional translation · segment 1854253)

- **define** a corrective action plan;
  il **définit** un plan d'actions correctives;
  ([DGT-TM v2021](https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/language-technology-resources/dgt-translation-memory_en) · Source: European Commission, DGT-TM (Steinberger et al. 2012), re-used under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU; the Commission keeps ownership of the data · checked, professional translation · segment 4605155)

- 22. Article 1 of the Convention **defines** torture.
  22. L &apos; article premier de la Convention **définit** la torture.
  ([United Nations Parallel Corpus v1.0](https://conferences.unite.un.org/UNCorpus) · Source: United Nations, United Nations Parallel Corpus v1.0 (Ziemski, Junczys-Dowmunt and Pouliquen 2016) · checked, professional translation · segment 22280916)

- Learn to **define** your goals.
  Apprenez à **définir** vos objectifs.
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by AlanF\_US and Aiji · checked, community translation · [\#7813839](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/7813839) [\#8418524](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/8418524))

## More sentences

Sentence pairs with the word where no single translation was found: it may be translated by a phrase, or left out.

- How do you **define** success?
  Comment définis-tu le succès ?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CM and Petrus · checked, community translation · [\#5741690](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/5741690) [\#5743765](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/5743765))

- How do you **define** fidelity?
  Comment définissez-vous la fidélité ?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by Dejo and sacredceltic · checked, community translation · [\#2223649](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2223649) [\#2226599](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/2226599))

- How do you **define** normal?
  Comment définis-tu la normalité ?
  ([Tatoeba](https://tatoeba.org/) · Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR · sentences by CM and sacredceltic · checked, community translation · [\#3730898](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3730898) [\#3979787](https://tatoeba.org/en/sentences/show/3979787))

## Grammar

Notes on grammar and translation on Mova: [English grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/) · [French grammar](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/) · [translating between English and French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/pairs/en-fr/) · [translating from English](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/from-en/) · [translating into French](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/translation/into-fr/).

## About these examples

Translations are found by how often the two words stand in the same sentence pairs, and the highlighted words are matched automatically: both are approximate. Counts are estimated from a sample of each source. Every example names its source and licence. [Submit a better translation or example](https://md.translate.elamur.ai/free/en/submit/?pair=en-fr&word=define).


Every example is quoted under its source's licence and credited with it; the rest of the site is open under the Elamur Cosmic License.