laissé

Laissé is the masculine singular past participle of the French verb laisser, meaning to leave or to let. It also serves as an adjective meaning left behind or abandoned. The form agrees in gender and number with a preceding direct object in compound tenses: for example, les livres que j'ai laissés (masculine plural) and les clés que j'ai laissées (feminine plural).

In the standard passé composé with auxiliary avoir, the past participle is left as laissé in the masculine singular and changes only to laissez, laissée, laissés, or laissées to agree with the direct object when it precedes the verb. Examples: J'ai laissé un message. J'ai laissées mes clés sur la table. When the object follows the verb, no agreement is required: J'ai laissé les clés sur la table.

Laissé is used in a wide range of semantic contexts related to failing to keep, permit, or cause to remain. Common expressions include laisser faire (to let happen or to refrain from interfering), laisser tomber (to abandon or drop), laisser passer (to overlook or permit to pass), et laisser entendre (to hint or suggest). Other phrases such as laisser derrière soi (to leave behind) and laisser quelqu'un en plan (to abandon someone) are routinely used in everyday French. Laisser may also convey voluntary or involuntary abandonment, or permission given to someone else.

As an element of idiomatic language, laissé conveys the result or state resulting from leaving or letting, and appears in many fixed expressions that expand its meanings beyond the literal act of leaving.