Blesser Conjugation: All Tenses of the French Verb “blesser”
Written by Camille Laurent, Lead French Curriculum Editor · Reviewed August 2026
Blesser means “to injure” or “to hurt,” physically or emotionally. It has nothing to do with English “to bless,” which is bénir, and that resemblance is the main reason learners get it wrong.
Blesser is transitive: someone or something wounds someone else. For an injury you did to yourself, French uses the reflexive se blesser (je me suis blessé au genou), and for the resulting state it uses être blessé (il a été blessé dans l'accident). The emotional sense is at least as common as the physical one — des mots qui blessent, tu m'as blessé — and it is stronger than English “to hurt someone's feelings,” closer to “to wound.”
Blesser is a fully regular first-group verb. There is one stem, bless-, in every tense, with the standard -er endings: je blesse, nous blessons, je blessais, je blesserai, que je blesse. The double s belongs to the stem and never changes, and no accent is ever added. What is worth noticing is the pronunciation: blesse, blesses and blessent are identical to the ear, and so are blessais, blessait and blessaient, so the ending you write depends entirely on the subject. The past participle is blessé, and after être it agrees like an adjective: elle est blessée.
Blesser takes avoir: j'ai blessé. The reflexive se blesser takes être, like every reflexive verb, and its participle agrees with the subject: je me suis blessé, elle s'est blessée. Choosing between the two is a question of who got hurt, not of tense.
Blesser in context
Présent
Tu blesses ton frère quand tu te moques de lui. You hurt your brother when you make fun of him.
Imparfait
Chaque remarque sur mon accent me blessait un peu. Every comment about my accent stung a little.
Passé composé
Elle a blessé son amie sans le vouloir. She hurt her friend without meaning to.
Futur simple
Ça la blessera si tu ne l'invites pas. It'll hurt her if you don't invite her.
Subjonctif présent
Bien que ses mots me blessent, je comprends pourquoi il les a dits. Even though his words hurt me, I understand why he said them.
Common mistakes with blesser
Using avoir with the reflexive
✗ Je m'ai blessé au genou.
✓ Je me suis blessé au genou. — I hurt my knee.
Every reflexive verb in French builds its compound tenses with être, so the auxiliary is suis, es, est and not ai, as, a. The participle then agrees with the subject: elle s'est blessée, ils se sont blessés.
Reading blesser as “to bless”
✗ Le prêtre a blessé les enfants.
✓ Le prêtre a béni les enfants. — The priest blessed the children.
Blesser and “bless” look alike and mean opposite things: blesser is to wound. The verb for blessing is bénir, participle béni. This is one of the sharpest false friends between the two languages, and the mistake makes a sentence read very differently from how you intended.
Dropping être from the passive
✗ J'ai blessé dans un accident de vélo.
✓ J'ai été blessé dans un accident de vélo. — I was injured in a cycling accident.
Blesser needs an object: j'ai blessé quelqu'un. To say you were the one hurt, you need either the passive j'ai été blessé or the reflexive je me suis blessé. Without one of them the sentence says you injured someone else.
Expressions with blesser
il n'y a que la vérité qui blesse
the truth hurts
blesser quelqu'un au vif
to cut someone to the quick
des mots qui blessent
hurtful words
Frequently asked questions
Is blesser a regular verb?
Yes. It is a first-group -er verb with a single stem, bless-, and no spelling changes anywhere in the grid. The double s is part of the stem, not a doubling rule, so it stays put in every form: je blesse, nous blessons, je blesserai.
Does blesser take avoir or être?
Blesser itself takes avoir: le chien a blessé un passant. The reflexive se blesser takes être: il s'est blessé en tombant. And the passive, which is how you usually describe an injury with no named cause, uses être too: trois personnes ont été blessées.
Does blesser mean “to bless”?
No, the opposite. Blesser means to wound or to hurt, and une blessure is an injury. To bless is bénir: que Dieu vous bénisse. The two verbs share a look but no history worth relying on, so treat the resemblance as a trap rather than a hint.
What is the difference between blesser and faire mal?
Blesser is to injure someone or to wound their feelings, with the person doing the hurting as the subject: tu m'as blessé. Faire mal describes the sensation, with the source as the subject: ça fait mal, mon dos me fait mal. For a physical injury you would report at a hospital, blesser is the verb.
What is the past participle of blesser and does it agree?
The participle is blessé. After avoir it only agrees with a direct object placed before the verb (les joueurs qu'il a blessés). After être, whether in the passive or with the reflexive, it agrees with the subject: elle a été blessée, elles se sont blessées. All those endings are silent.