tenir.
to have; to hold
Meaning & usage
to have; to hold
to keep
to stay; to hold
tenir bon
to hold on
La vie ne tient qu'à un fil.
Elle descend en se tenant aux racines.
to hold oneself, to be standing
Il se tenait dans le coin.
to maintain, remain in a certain position or disposition
Tiens-toi droit !
Elle se tient immobile sur la corde raide.
to behave
Tiens-toi bien.
to be attached (to), to be fond (of), to hold dear
to hold dear, to be keen (about), to insist (upon)
to consider (something)
se le tenir pour dit
tenir quelque chose pour acquis
to support
to hold, to defend
to hang out, to hang around
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle French tenir, from Old French tenir, from Early Medieval Latin tenīre, from Classical Latin tenēre.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.