rient

Rient is the third-person plural present indicative form of the French verb rire, meaning "they laugh." The verb rire itself means to laugh, and rient appears in phrases describing people laughing in the present moment.

Etymology and relatives: rire comes from Latin ridere, meaning to laugh. The form rient shares its root with other Romance languages, such as Spanish reír and Italian ridere, which similarly derive from ridere.

Conjugation and pronunciation: In present tense, the standard forms are je ris, tu ris, il rit, nous rions, vous riez, ils rient. The third-person plural form is rient. It is pronounced roughly as [ʁjɛ̃], with a nasal vowel. The spelling reflects the irregular pronunciation often seen with the verb rire in the present tense.

Usage: Rient is used to indicate that a group of subjects is laughing in the present. It can accompany a clause or stand on its own in narrative or dialogue, for example: "Ils rient de la blague." The form can convey genuine laughter or a reaction to something humorous, and it appears in both spoken and written French.

Notes: Rire is an irregular -ire verb, and rient’s spelling follows the standard present-tense pattern for the ils/elles form. While rient is common in French, it has no independent meaning outside this grammatical role, and outside of French it is generally understood only as the conjugated verb form.