devinais

Devinais is the second-person singular imperfect indicative form of the French verb deviner, meaning "you were guessing" or "you used to guess." It is used in narrative or descriptive contexts to describe a past action that was ongoing or habitual, specifically the act of guessing or inferring.

Etymology and background: Deviner comes from Old French deviner, itself from Latin divinare “to divine,” related to the idea of foreseeing or guessing. The imperfect form devinais follows the standard conjugation pattern for -er verbs in French, preserving the root with the expected -ais ending in the tu form.

Conjugation and usage: The imperfect tense expresses a continuing or habitual past action. The full imperfect paradigm of deviner is: je devinais, tu devinais, il/elle/on devinait, nous devinions, vous deviniez, ils/elles devinaient. The form "devinais" describes what you were guessing at a given time, or what you used to guess in a past context. By contrast, the passé composé "tu as deviné" indicates a completed act of guessing in the past.

Related terms: The infinitive is deviner. The concept is connected to divination, and clinically to the grammatical class of French imperfect verbs. Devinais functions primarily within French, illustrating how past imperfect actions of guessing are expressed in standard narration.