trouvées

Trouvées is the feminine plural past participle of trouver in French. It is used either as an adjective or as part of a compound tense, and it agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies or with a preceding direct object in a clause using avoir.

In practice, trouvées appears in phrases such as des choses trouvées (found things) or in relative clauses where the direct object precedes the verb, for example les lettres qu'elles ont trouvées (the letters that they found). The agreement rules mean that when the preceding direct object is feminine plural, the participle takes the form trouvées.

As a standalone noun, the common term for a discovery or finding is trouvaille, with the plural trouvailles. The form trouvées is not generally used as a noun; it is primarily seen as a past participle or as an adjective referring to feminine plural nouns. Its use is thus tied to grammar and agreement rather than to a specific lexical meaning beyond the concept of something that has been found.

Originating from the verb trouver, trouvées reflects standard French patterns of past participle agreement. It is encountered across formal and informal registers, particularly in written language, grammatical explanations, and literary contexts where precise gender and number agreement are important. See also trouver, trouvère, and trouvaille for related terms and lexical fields.