trahissent

Trahissent is a grammatical form in the French language. It represents the third-person plural present subjunctive of the verb trahir, meaning to betray. This form is used in subordinate clauses that express doubt, possibility, necessity, emotion, or hypothetical situations, and it appears in more formal or literary contexts than in everyday speech.

Morphology and usage in context. The present subjunctive in French uses a distinct set of endings, and for the verb trahir the stem used in the subjunctive is trahiss-. Therefore, the full set of present-subjunctive forms includes: que je trahisse, que tu trahisses, qu’il trahisse, que nous trahissions, que vous trahissiez, qu’ils trahissent. The specific form qu’ils trahissent is written as trahissent. In practice, this mood is often found after conjunctions like bien que, pour que, afin que, or in expressions of doubt or wish, where the speaker treats the action as uncertain or contingent.

Etymology and related forms. Trahir comes from Old French trahir, which in turn derives from Latin traducere “to hand over, betray.” The present subjunctive forms, including trahissent, illustrate how French maintains a distinct mood-based system that marks speaker attitude toward the action of the verb.

Usage notes. In contemporary spoken French, the present subjunctive is sometimes replaced by other constructions, especially in informal contexts. However, trahissent remains standard in formal writing, legal language, and literary works, where the subjunctive mood helps convey nuance around betrayal as a hypothetical or contested action.

See also. Trahir, present indicative forms (traît, trahissons, trahissez), and subjunctive mood in French. Example: Je doute qu’ils trahissent la confiance qui leur a été accordée.