louer

Louer is a French verb with two primary meanings. The most common in everyday use today is to rent or lease something: to obtain the right to use a property, equipment, or service in exchange for payment, either as a tenant or as someone who rents out an item. The second meaning is to praise or commend someone or something publicly, as in “louer les mérites de quelqu’un.”

Conjugation and usage: louer is a regular -er verb. In the present tense: je loue, tu loues, il/elle loue, nous louons, vous louez, ils/elles louent. It uses être for some pronominal forms? No, it takes être in compound tenses? Not applicable here; it takes avoir in compound tenses: j’ai loué, tu as loué, il a loué. For the rental sense, the construction often specifies the party: “louer quelque chose à quelqu’un” (to rent something to someone). When the speaker is the renter, as in “I rent an apartment,” the sentence is typically “Je loue un appartement.” To express renting out an item to someone, one can say “Je loue ma voiture à mes voisins.”

Related terms and nuances: the noun form is la location (the act of renting), le bail (lease), and le loyer (rent). The two senses can be distinguished by context, since louer in the sense of praise coexists with the rent sense in everyday French.

Etymology: louer comes from Old French louer, ultimately from Latin laudare meaning “to praise.” The sense related to praise remains common, while the rental sense developed through legal and commercial usage in medieval and modern French.