Appartenu

Appartenu is the masculine singular past participle of the French verb appartenir, which means to belong. It functions primarily as the past participle in verb forms that express completed belonging or ownership and can appear in legal, historical, or formal prose. The feminine form is appartenue, and the plural forms are appartenus (masculine) and appartenees (feminine).

Usage and grammar

As a participle, appartenu can be used in compound tenses with the appropriate auxiliary, though in modern everyday French the more common present participle form appartenant is typically used when describing something that belongs to someone. The past participle agrees in gender and number when used in adjectival function or in certain compound constructions: for example, a phrase describing a thing that had belonged to someone in the past would align with the noun it modifies. In practice, appartenu occurs most often in formal, literary, or archival contexts rather than in everyday speech.

Relation to related forms

Appartenu derives from belonging with the sense of property or ownership. The related noun appartenance denotes the state or fact of belonging, while the verb appartenir is the root action of belonging. The present participle, appartenant, is commonly used to describe something that belongs to someone, as in phrases like “un document appartenant au propriétaire.”

Etymology

Appartenir comes from Old French and ultimately from Latin roots meaning to pertain or belong. The past participle appartenu reflects the same lineage, retained in modern French for formal or literary uses.

See also

appartenir, appartenance, propriété, belonging.