Croissaient

Croissaient is the third-person plural imperfect form of the French verb croître, which means to grow, increase, or develop. In contemporary French, croître is relatively formal or literary, and its imperfect form croissaient is used in past narrative to describe ongoing growth or expansion by multiple subjects. For example, Les récoltes croissaient malgré les intempéries translates to The harvests were growing despite the weather.

Etymology and forms: croître derives from Latin crēscere, meaning to grow. In French, croître has an irregular present tense (je croîs, tu croîs, il croît, nous croissons, vous croissez, ils croissent), while the imperfect follows the regular pattern with the stem croiss- plus the imperfect endings -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient, yielding croiss-]a[ient for the third-person plural, i.e., croissaient. The past participle is crû (m. sg) or crûe (f. sg).

Related usage: The adjective croissant, meaning growing or increasing, shares the same root. It is also used as a noun to name the crescent shape of the moon or, famously, the croissant pastry, whose name reflects its crescent form rather than a direct sense of “growth.” In everyday speech, croître is less common than synonyms such as augmenter or grandir, but it appears in formal writing, historical narratives, and discussions of population, economy, or natural processes.

Examples in translation: Croissaient peut-être plus rapidement qu’auparavant means They were growing more quickly than before. The form highlights a continuing action in the past, typical of imperfect narrative style.