Sétirent

Sétirent is not a recognized standard form in contemporary French. It is typically regarded as a misspelling or typographical variant rather than a separate lexical item. The term most often appears when the correct apostrophe in a pronominal verb is omitted in writing.

The correct verb is s’étirer, a pronominal verb meaning "to stretch oneself." In standard usage, the pronominal clitic se becomes s’ before a vowel, and the verb inflects according to the tense: ils s’étirent (present), ils s’étiraient (imperfect), ils s’étirèrent (passé simple). The present participle is s’étirant, and the past participle is étiré with the auxiliary être: ils se sont étirés.

Because the form s’étirent or s’étirèrent requires the apostrophe, the sequence sétirent without an apostrophe is generally considered nonstandard. In contexts that preserve orthography strictly, such as edited prose, academic writing, or modern publishing, it would be corrected to s’étirent (present) or s’étirèrent (passé simple), depending on the tense.

In usage, the verb describes people stretching their bodies, oneself or others: ils s’étirent après le réveil, ils s’étirèrent après l’effort. Occasional appearances of sétirent are typically found in OCR errors, typographical mistakes, or transcription omissions rather than as a legitimate variant.

See also: s’étirer, étirer, conjugation of pronominal verbs, French orthography.