Aigus

Aigus is the plural masculine form of the French adjective aigu, meaning sharp, pointed, or acute. The word can describe physical edges, such as a couteau aigu (a sharp knife), or abstract qualities like an acute angle (angle aigu) or a high-pitched sound (son aigu or sons aigus). The standard feminine forms are aiguë (singular) and aiguës (plural). In typography and orthography, the term aigu is also associated with the accent aigu, the acute diacritic used over vowels like é.

The plural form aigus is used when the noun it modifies is masculine and plural, as in des sons aigus or des angles aigus. When the noun is feminine and plural, the feminine plural form aiguës is used, as in des voix aiguës. The term is therefore encountered across contexts such as music, architecture, linguistics, and general descriptions of sharpness or high pitch.

Etymology traces aigu to the Latin acutus through Old French aigu, with the core sense of sharpness expanding into metaphorical uses of intensity or severity in literature and speech. While aigu itself functions as an adjective, the phrase accent aigu refers to the acute accent in French orthography; this diacritic is a separate term but related in the broader semantic field of sharpness. In modern usage, aigus primarily appears as a grammatical form rather than a standalone noun.