Peaufiner Conjugation: All Tenses of the French Verb “peaufiner”
Written by Camille Laurent, Lead French Curriculum Editor · Reviewed August 2026
Peaufiner means to put the finishing touches to something: a presentation, a text, a plan. It is a regular -er verb, and the only real obstacle is the spelling, which comes from peau and fin rather than from anything you can hear.
Peaufiner is an office and workshop word. You peaufiner a slide deck the night before a meeting, a CV before sending it, the last paragraph of a report. It is slightly informal without being slangy, which makes it perfectly usable at work but a poor fit for legal or administrative writing, where finaliser or parfaire would be chosen instead. It also carries a clear implication that the work is nearly finished: you cannot peaufiner something you have not started.
Peaufiner is a fully regular first-group verb on the stem peaufin-, so there are no stem changes to learn: je peaufine, tu peaufines, il peaufine, nous peaufinons, vous peaufinez, ils peaufinent. Those first three and ils peaufinent are pronounced identically, because -e, -es and -ent are all silent. The future and conditional add their endings to the whole infinitive: je peaufinerai, je peaufinerais. The subjunctive copies the present apart from nous peaufinions and vous peaufiniez. The past participle is peaufiné, and it works as an adjective: un discours peaufiné.
Peaufiner in context
Présent
Elle peaufine sa présentation jusqu'à la dernière minute. She keeps tweaking her presentation until the last minute.
Imparfait
Nous peaufinions les derniers détails pendant que les autres rangeaient la salle. We were finishing off the last details while the others tidied the room.
Passé composé
J'ai peaufiné mon CV avant de l'envoyer. I polished up my CV before sending it off.
Futur simple
Tu peaufineras le texte demain, il est déjà tard. You can polish the text tomorrow, it's already late.
Subjonctif présent
Il faut que vous peaufiniez la conclusion avant la réunion. You need to tighten up the conclusion before the meeting.
Common mistakes with peaufiner
Spelling it the way it sounds
✗ Je dois pofiner mon discours.
✓ Je dois peaufiner mon discours. — I need to polish my speech.
The first syllable is just an o sound, but it is spelled peau, because the verb comes from peau fine, the fine hide leatherworkers finished by hand. Spellings like pofiner and peauffiner do not exist: keep the peau and use a single f.
Using peaufiner for polishing an actual surface
✗ Il peaufine ses chaussures avant la cérémonie.
✓ Il cire ses chaussures avant la cérémonie. — He polishes his shoes before the ceremony.
Despite its leatherworking origin, modern peaufiner is figurative: it applies to work, texts, plans and performances, not to objects you rub. For shoes use cirer, for furniture and metal astiquer, and for a stone or a lens polir.
Reusing the present form in the subjunctive after nous
✗ Il faut que nous peaufinons le dossier ce soir.
✓ Il faut que nous peaufinions le dossier ce soir. — We need to finish off the file tonight.
The subjunctive of an -er verb is identical to the present in the singular, which makes it easy to assume the plural works the same way. Nous and vous take -ions and -iez instead, so the subjunctive forms are nous peaufinions and vous peaufiniez.
Expressions with peaufiner
peaufiner les détails
to iron out the details
peaufiner sa copie
to go back and improve your work
peaufiner son image
to polish your image
peaufiner un discours
to fine-tune a speech
Frequently asked questions
Is peaufiner a regular verb?
Yes, it is a regular first-group -er verb with no stem change at all: je peaufine, nous peaufinons, past participle peaufiné, future je peaufinerai. It takes avoir in compound tenses. The whole table follows from the stem peaufin- plus standard endings.
Where does the word peaufiner come from?
From peau fine, literally fine skin or fine hide. It began as a leatherworking term for the last careful stage of finishing a hide, and the modern sense generalised from there to any final refinement. Knowing the origin is the easiest way to remember the odd spelling.
Is peaufiner formal or informal?
It sits just below neutral: common and unremarkable in spoken French and in everyday work emails, but a little too casual for contracts, official reports or academic writing. In those contexts French prefers finaliser, affiner or parfaire.
What is the difference between peaufiner and finir?
Finir means to finish, full stop. Peaufiner means to improve something that is already essentially done, by adjusting small things. You can peaufiner a text for an hour without finishing it, and you can finir a text without having peaufiné anything.
How do you pronounce peaufiner?
Three syllables, roughly po-fee-NAY. The peau- is a single closed o sound, not two syllables, and the -er ending is the usual ay. Ils peaufinent is pronounced exactly like il peaufine, since the -ent ending is silent.