quatre

Quatre is the French word for the cardinal number four. It represents the integer between trois and cinq and is used in counting, quantities, times, dates, and many common expressions. In everyday French, quatre agrees with no noun in gender or number, and the ordinal form for four is quatrième.

Etymology and relatives: Quatre derives from Latin quattuor, passing through Old French. It has cognates in other Romance languages, such as español cuatro and italiano quattro, and is related to the English prefix quad-.

Usage notes: Quatre is used before nouns to indicate quantity (quatre pommes, quatre jours). It appears in time expressions such as quatre heures (four o’clock) and four times (quatre fois). The corresponding ordinal form is quatrième, used for sequence (la quatrième édition, le quatrième étage). Common phrases include à quatre (by four people) and à quatre mains (with four hands). In some contexts, numbers like quatre function as part of compound terms, for example quatre-quarts, a cake named for its four equal parts.

Numerical properties: In mathematics, the number four is even and a perfect square (2 squared). It is the first composite number and appears frequently in educational contexts and everyday counting.

Cultural references: The number four appears in various cultural contexts, from calendar seasons (quatre saisons) to musical and literary expressions, reflecting its ubiquity in counting systems, timekeeping, and categorization in French.