Étés

étés is the plural form of the French noun été, meaning “summer,” and also the masculine plural of the past participle of the verb être (“to be”). As a noun, the word designates multiple seasons of warm weather; it is used in contexts ranging from meteorological reports to literary descriptions. In French, the singular and plural forms are pronounced identically, with the final –s silent in both cases. For example, “Les étés de ma jeunesse étaient plus longs” translates as “The summers of my youth were longer.”

When used as the past participle, the masculine plural étés agrees with a plural masculine subject, as in “Les projets ont été achevés” (“The projects have been completed”). In this grammatical role, the word is part of the compound passé composé and related tenses. Feminine plural agreement yields the form ées, as in “Les idées ont été exprimées.”

In literature, the term étés often appears in nostalgic or evocative passages, contrasting the transitory nature of summer with the passage of time. The word can also function idiomatically in expressions such as “passer un été” (to spend a summer) or “les éternels étés” (the endless summers).

The spelling étés (with an acute accent on the first e) follows French orthographic rules that preserve the pronunciation of the open vowel /e/. The word is listed in French dictionaries, both as a noun and as a participial form, and appears in standard French grammar references. Overall, étés serves both lexical and grammatical purposes in the French language, reflecting seasonal cycles and verb conjugation patterns.