envoies

Envoies is a French term that can refer to two distinct concepts depending on context. Most commonly, it is associated with the verb envoyer, meaning to send or dispatch, producing forms such as envoie, envoies, envoient, etc. In written language, envoies is the second-person singular present tense form: tu envoies (you send). It also appears as part of other verb forms such as je envoie, il envoie, nous envoyons, vous envoyez, ils envoient.

As a noun, the correct plural is envois, not envoies. The noun envoi refers to a shipment or dispatch and is used in postal, commercial, or logistical contexts. An envoi can describe a single shipment, a consignment, or a batch of goods sent to a recipient. In practical use, you would talk about des envois postaux or des envois commerciaux, with envois functioning similarly to “shipments” or “consignments” in English.

In addition to its logistical sense, envoi appears in literary contexts. In medieval and classical poetry, an envoi is a brief concluding stanza or a short invocation addressed to a patron or addressee. This poetics sense is typically kept distinct from the everyday notion of sending or shipping and is more common in discussions of form and structure within ballades and related verse forms. The English borrowings “envoi” (singular) and “envois” (plural) reflect this origin.

Summary: envoies is primarily a verb form of envoyer, while the standard noun for a shipment is envoi with plural envois. The term also exists as a literary device in poetry.