doutais

Doutais is the second-person singular imperfect indicative form of the French verb douter, meaning “you doubted.” It is used to describe a past state of doubt or a habitual action in the past when addressing someone as “tu.”

Douter is a regular -er verb, and its imperfect forms are built by taking the stem dout- from the infinitive and adding the imperfect endings. The full imperfect conjugation for the verb in the indicative mood is: je doutais, tu doutais, il doutait, nous doutions, vous doutiez, ils doutaient. Doutais therefore functions as the second-person singular form in this tense.

Etymology traces douter to Old French douter, from Latin dubitare, which share a common meaning of hesitation or questioning. In modern usage, doutais appears in narrative prose, dialogue, and reported speech to convey that the subject was doubting at a particular time or repeatedly doubted in the past. It can be contrasted with passé composé forms such as tu as douté, which places the action in a completed past moment.

Examples include: “Tu doutais de ses promesses” (“You were doubting his promises”), or “Pendant la réunion, tu doutais de la faisabilité du projet.” When forming negative or interrogative sentences, standard French syntax applies, as in “Tu ne doutais pas?” or “Doutais-tu souvent de ses explications?”

Doutais is primarily a grammatical form rather than a standalone lexical entry, and it appears across contexts where past or habitual doubt by a second-person subject is described.