Dure

Dure is the feminine singular form of the French adjective dur, used to describe something hard, tough, or severe. The word agrees with the noun it modifies: masculine singular dur, feminine singular dure, masculine plural durs, and feminine plural dures. In addition to physical hardness, dure can indicate difficulty, harshness, or durability in a figurative sense, as in une vie dure or une punition dure.

Etymology for dure traces to Latin durus, with related terms appearing across Romance languages to express hardness or endurance. In French, the root also yields words such as dureté (hardness) and durable (durable), highlighting a common semantic field around hardness and persistence.

Usage notes and examples help illustrate sense shifts. Le métal est dur (The metal is hard). La matière est dure (The material is hard). C'est une vie dure (It’s a hard/difficult life). Une punition dure (A harsh punishment). The nuance depends on context, ranging from physical properties to moral or experiential difficulty.

Dure functions primarily as a descriptive adjective and does not form a separate lexical category beyond agreement with nouns. Its feminine plural form is dures, while the masculine forms are dur and durs. The term remains common in everyday French and appears in literature, media, and education to convey the idea of hardness, severity, or resilience.

See also: dureté, durable, dur.