Fréquentes

Fréquentes is the feminine plural form of the French adjective fréquent, meaning “frequent” or “occurring often.” It is used to describe feminine plural nouns and must agree with the noun in gender and number. For example: des visites fréquentes (frequent visits) or des perturbations fréquentes (frequent disturbances). The masculine counterparts are fréquent (masculine singular), fréquente (feminine singular), and fréquents (masculine plural); together they form the standard set of inflected forms for this adjective.

Etymology and form: the adjective derives from the Latin frequentus, through Old French and Early Modern French. The meaning shift toward regular occurrence or high recurrence is reflected in the modern usage of fréquences of events, behaviors, or phenomena.

Usage: fréquentes is commonly employed in descriptive writing, statistics, journalism, and academic prose to indicate that something happens often or with high frequency. It can modify nouns referring to actions (visits, interruptions), events (séances, rendez-vous), or phenomena (problèmes, troubles) and is often found in phrases like “fréquentes dans la région” (frequent in the region) or “fréquentes au cours de l’année.”

Relation to related terms: while synonyms such as régulier, courant, or répété may convey similar ideas in certain contexts, fréquentes emphasizes recurrence and regularity. It should not be used with masculine nouns, where the forms fréquent or fréquents would be appropriate.

In sum, fréquentes is a grammatical form that signals feminine plural agreement and conveys that a condition or occurrence happens often.