essayait

Essayait is the imperfect (imparfait) form of the French verb essayer, meaning to try or to test. As a conjugated form, it appears in the third-person singular: il essayait. The imperfect mood covers ongoing or habitual past actions, states, or background events, so essayait is typically translated as “was trying” or “used to try” depending on context. The complete imperfect paradigm of essayer is j’essayais, tu essayais, il/elle essayait, nous essayions, vous essayiez, ils essayaient.

The main usage of essayer is with the infinitive plus de or without an auxiliary in various constructions. In most cases one says essayer de + infinitive to express attempting to do something, as in Il essayait de réparer la voiture (He was trying to repair the car). Essayier can also be used more broadly to mean testing or sampling something, such as essayer une idea or essayer un produit, often in the sense of “trying out.”

Etymology and related forms: essayer derives from Old French essai, meaning trial or attempt, and the noun essai shares the same root. The English word assay and the French noun essai come from the same lineage. Other related forms include the present participle essayant and the past participle essayé, which participate in compound tenses.

Notes: essayait should not be confused with the present tense j’essaie or other imperfect forms of the same verb. The root form in the infinitive is essayer; its orthography and conjugation reflect standard French verb patterns for -ayer verbs in the imperfect.