entendre

Extracted from double entendre, corresponding to French entendre (“to understand, to mean”); doublet of intend.

entendre (plural entendres)

1. A meaning, especially one that is implied rather than explicitly stated.
   • 1970, Eugene Wildman, Montezuma’s Ball, Chicago, Ill.: The Swallow Press Inc., →LCCN, page 82:

     Like Lon Chaney, this mind’s mummy lives—but beneath how many wrappings of multiple entendres?

   • 1986, San Francisco Focus, volume 33, page 105, column 2:

     “Come on baby let’s ride / slide on into your four-wheel-drive and ride,” the singer urges, conveying more entendres than two.

   • 1992, Julie Burchill, Sex & Sensibility, London: Grafton, →ISBN, page 38:

     Still, in pursuit of said Phantom Nympho, much fun had been had – and more entendres doubled than you could shake a stick at.

   • 1999 November–December, Joel Drucker, “King of the Ring: Let the Critics Snipe; Pro Wrestling Honcho Vince McMahon Will Tell You, ‘We’re About What People Want’”, in Cigar Aficionado‎^[1], volume 7, number 6, archived from the original on 29 April 2020, page 135, column 2:

     Though he decries “egghead philosophers who try to tell us what we are,” even [Vince] McMahon notes a historical connection surrounding the evolution of WWF plot lines. In the 1980s, echoing the Cold War, it was mostly a matter of good guys versus bad guys. “Black and white, pretty simple,” he says. “But now we’re into more entendres, different shadings.”

   • 2009, Steven Helmling, Adorno’s Poetics of Critique (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)‎^[2], Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN:

     […] and double-, triple-, multiple-entendres of its very title already begin to dramatize, and with the effect of seeming to replicate the very miscarriage of ‘dialectic’ itself that is the crux of the book’s indictment of ‘enlightenment’.

   • 2010, The British Tradition (Prentice Hall Literature), Michigan teacher’s edition, volume 2, Prentice Hall, →ISBN, page 804:

     Ono Komachi was a prominent and gifted poet in her day. She was able to weave emotional intensity, multiple entendres, and metaphors together to form elegant poetry.

   • 2019, Allen Salkin, Aaron Short, quoting Conrad Riggs, The Method to the Madness: Donald Trump’s Ascent as Told by Those Who Were Hired, Fired, Inspired—and Inaugurated‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: All Points Books, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, →ISBN:

     Survivor had been developed as Survive by Charlie Parsons. When I’d talk to people about it, they thought it sounded like a military thing or an athletic test of skill and strength. But it’s really a psychological and social experiment. “Survivor” had more entendres.

• Chiefly used in single entendre, double entendre, triple entendre, quadruple entendre, etc.

• entender, renneted

Inherited from Latin intendere (“to turn one’s attention, to strain”).

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ənˈten.dɾə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [enˈten.dɾe]

• Audio:

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entendre (first-person singular present entenc, first-person singular preterite entenguí, past participle entès); root stress: (Central, Valencia, Balearic) /e/

1. to understand

   Synonym: comprendre

   Antonym: malentendre

• “entendre”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “entendre”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
• “entendre” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “entendre” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Inherited from Middle French entendre and Old French entendre, from Latin intendere (“to turn one’s attention, to strain”). Cognate with Catalan entendre, Spanish entender, English intend.

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.tɑ̃dʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: en‧tendre

entendre

1. to hear
2. (intransitive) to be able to hear
3. (literary) to listen to
4. (formal) to mean

   Synonym: (informal) vouloir dire

   Qu'entendez-vous par là ? ― What do you mean by that?

   Qu'entendait-il par « attristé par la tranquilité » ? ― What does he mean by "saddened by the tranquility"?

5. (reflexive) to agree with each other
6. (reflexive) to have good relations with; to get on; to get along

   Je m'entends bien avec elle. ― I get along well with her.

   Si seulement mes enfants s’entendaient ! ― If only my kids got along!

7. (pronominal) to be good or competent at something

   s'y entendre en […] ― to be good at […]

8. (rare) to desire; to wish; to intend

   Synonym: désirer

   comme je l’entends ― as I wish

   J'entends bien régler cette question une bonne fois pour toutes. ― I fully intend to solve this issue once and for all.

9. (dated) to demand

   Synonym: exiger

10. (dated) to know

    Synonym: savoir

11. (archaic) to understand

    Synonym: comprendre

• “entendre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Comment-conjuguer.fr - online conjugation of “entendre”

From Old French entendre.

entendre

1. to hear
2. to understand

• French: entendre

• ouyr (“to hear”)

• entèndre (Mistralian)

From Old Occitan, from Latin intendere (“to turn one’s attention, to strain”).

• Audio (Languedoc):

  (file)

entendre

1. to hear
2. to understand

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

From Latin intendere (“to turn one’s attention, to strain”).

• (archaic) IPA^(key): /enˈtendɾə/
• IPA^(key): /anˈtandɾə/

entendre

1. to hear
2. to understand
   • 1377, Bernard de Gordon, Fleur de lis de medecine (a.k.a. lilium medicine), page 186 of this essay:

     tu dois entendre que matiere de lepre c’est humeur melencolique adusté

     you must understand that the matter that makes up leprosy is hot melancholic humor

This verb conjugates as a third-group verb. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

• (hear): oïr

• → Middle English: entenden, intenden
  • English: intend
• Middle French: entendre
  • French: entendre