Boire Conjugation: All Tenses of the French Verb “boire”
Written by Camille Laurent, Lead French Curriculum Editor · Reviewed August 2026
Boire means “to drink.” It is a short, very common verb whose stem changes three times inside the present tense alone, which makes it one of the first irregular verbs worth learning properly.
You need boire from your first café order onward, and the sentences it appears in are usually a lesson in the partitive: je bois du café, elle boit de l'eau, on prend du vin. After a negative or a quantity the du becomes de: je ne bois pas de lait, je bois beaucoup d'eau. One thing to know before you use it about a person: boire with no object at all implies alcohol, so il boit is a comment on someone's drinking, not on their hydration.
Boire has three present stems. The singular uses boi- (je bois, tu bois, il boit), nous and vous use buv- (nous buvons, vous buvez), and the third person plural uses boiv- (ils boivent). The imparfait and the participe présent are built on buv- throughout, so buv- is the stem you will write most in the past: je buvais, nous buvions, buvant. The future and conditional take boir- (je boirai, je boirais), and the subjunctive splits like the present: que je boive but que nous buvions. The past participle is bu, a single syllable.
Boire takes avoir: j'ai bu. The participle only agrees with a direct object that comes before the verb, which happens mostly with a relative pronoun: la bière que j'ai bue.
Boire in context
Présent
Elle boit son café sans sucre. She drinks her coffee without sugar.
Imparfait
Quand j'étais étudiant, je buvais beaucoup trop de café. When I was a student, I drank far too much coffee.
Passé composé
Nous avons bu une bouteille entière à trois. The three of us got through a whole bottle.
Futur simple
On boira du cidre avec la galette. We'll have cider with the galette.
Subjonctif présent
Il faut que tu boives plus d'eau. You need to drink more water.
Common mistakes with boire
Building nous and vous on the singular stem
✗ Nous boivons du thé le matin.
✓ Nous buvons du thé le matin. — We drink tea in the morning.
The boiv- stem belongs to ils boivent only. Nous and vous take buv-, which is also the stem of the whole imparfait. Learners who meet ils boivent first tend to spread it across the plural, where it does not belong.
Building a regular past participle
✗ J'ai buvé un verre d'eau.
✓ J'ai bu un verre d'eau. — I drank a glass of water.
Boire is not an -er verb, so there is no -é participle to build. Like lire, croire and voir it has a short irregular participle: bu. It is pronounced as one syllable, the same u sound as in tu.
Using the definite article for an unspecified quantity
✗ Je bois le vin au dîner.
✓ Je bois du vin au dîner. — I drink wine with dinner.
English drops the article in front of an uncountable noun; French cannot, and uses the partitive du, de la or de l' instead. Je bois le vin says you are drinking that particular wine, the bottle already on the table.
Expressions with boire
boire un verre
to have a drink
boire un coup
to grab a drink (informal)
boire les paroles de quelqu'un
to hang on someone's every word
il y a à boire et à manger
it's a mixed bag
Frequently asked questions
Is boire an irregular verb?
Yes, and the irregularity is unusually dense for such a short verb: three stems in the present (boi-, buv-, boiv-), a fourth for the future (boir-), and an unpredictable participle, bu. The endings themselves are the ordinary third-group ones, so once you know which stem goes with which person, the rest follows.
What is the past participle of boire?
It is bu, giving j'ai bu, nous avons bu. It agrees only with a direct object that precedes the verb, as in les deux cafés que j'ai bus. As an adjective in the informal register, bu can also describe someone who has had too much to drink.
Why is it nous buvons but ils boivent?
Because French verbs from Latin often kept a stressed stem for the forms where the stem carries the stress and an unstressed one elsewhere. The singular and the third person plural stress the stem (bois, boivent), while nous and vous stress the ending, which left buv-. Vouloir, pouvoir and prendre split for the same historical reason.
Do you say boire du café or boire le café?
Boire du café for coffee in general, which is what you want in most sentences. Boire le café points at a specific coffee already identified, and prendre le café is the fixed expression for having coffee after a meal. For a quantity, use un: je bois un café le matin.
How do you pronounce boit, buvons and boivent?
Je bois, tu bois and il boit are all pronounced the same, like the French word bois, with the final s or t silent. Buvons and buvez have the u of tu, and boivent ends in the silent -ent so it comes out as one syllable, bwav. The infinitive boire rhymes with soir.