Forming the Feminine: French Adjective Agreement

Forming the feminine is the other half of adjective agreement. Most adjectives just add –e, but a cluster of common endings change shape first, and a short list of irregulars simply have to be learned by heart.

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In the previous post, we looked at how adjectives agree in gender and number, and focused mostly on number, the plural. This post turns to gender: how an adjective’s feminine form is built from its masculine one. The default pattern is simple, but several common endings transform in predictable ways, and a short list of frequent adjectives don’t follow any pattern at all.

In this post

1. The basic rule
2. Adjectives that already end in -e
3. Doubling the final consonant
4. Common ending changes
5. Irregular forms to learn by heart

The basic rule

The rule

To form the feminine, the default pattern is to add -e to the masculine form. This covers the majority of adjectives you’ll meet. When the masculine ends in a silent consonant, like petit or français, adding -e also makes that consonant audible, one of the few places where gender changes pronunciation, not just spelling.

Examples

grand → grande (tall, big)

petit → petite (small)

français → française (French)

content → contente (happy)

Adjectives that already end in -e

The rule

If the masculine form already ends in -e, nothing changes. The feminine is identical.

Examples

un homme jeune → une femme jeune (a young man → a young woman)

un livre facile → une tâche facile (an easy book → an easy task)

un sourire calme → une voix calme (a calm smile → a calm voice)

Adjectives that take the same form in both genders, like these -e adjectives, have a name in French grammar: they’re called épicènes. You’ll mostly meet the term applied to this group, but it covers any adjective (or noun) that doesn’t vary between masculine and feminine.

Doubling the final consonant

The rule

A group of common endings double their final consonant before adding -e, rather than just attaching -e directly.

Ending	Becomes	Example
-en	-enne	européen → européenne
-on	-onne	bon → bonne
-et	-ette (most cases)	muet → muette
-il	-ille	gentil → gentille
-as / -is / -os	-asse / -isse / -osse	bas → basse, gros → grosse

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Two small exceptions worth knowing.

Not every -et adjective doubles: complet, secret, inquiet, and concret take a grave accent instead, giving complète, secrète, inquiète, concrète. And adjectives ending in -ais don’t belong to the -as group at all, they simply add -e as usual: français → française.

Common ending changes

The rule

Several endings transform into a different ending entirely, rather than simply adding -e or doubling a consonant. The -eur ending splits two ways: most descriptive adjectives in -eur become -euse (menteur → menteuse), but agent nouns describing a profession or role become -trice instead (acteur → actrice, directeur → directrice). When in doubt, ask whether the word names what someone does.

Ending	Becomes	Example
-eux	-euse	heureux → heureuse
-if	-ive	actif → active
-eur	-euse	menteur → menteuse
-teur	-trice	acteur → actrice
-c	-che (most cases)	blanc → blanche

Irregular forms to learn by heart

The rule

A short list of frequent adjectives don’t follow any of the patterns above. Their feminine forms have to be memorised individually, but because these adjectives are so common, they’re worth fixing in memory early.

-eau → -elle

beau → belle (beautiful, handsome)

nouveau → nouvelle (new)

-oux → -ouce / -ousse

doux → douce (soft, sweet)

roux → rousse (red-haired)

A few more, each its own pattern

vieux → vieille (old)

long → longue (long)

faux → fausse (false)

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Beau, nouveau, and vieux have a third form too.

Before a masculine noun starting with a vowel sound, these three swap to bel, nouvel, and vieil, purely for pronunciation: un bel homme, un nouvel ami, un vieil arbre. This isn’t a gender change; the noun is still masculine. It’s a separate, smoothing form that sits alongside the masculine and feminine ones.

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Most adjectives just add -e, and that single habit will carry you through the majority of what you read and write. The endings that transform (-eux/-euse, -if/-ive, -eur/-euse or -trice, -c/-che) are common enough to learn as a set, and the short list of irregulars (beau, vieux, nouveau, long, doux, faux, roux, fou, frais, public) is worth memorising on its own, simply because these words come up so often.

Ready to practice? Try the exercises →