In the following question, your answer is "us", masculine plural. I looked in a dictionary and found "mort" designated as feminine. But, I also found "faire le mort". Can you explain the shifting genders of "mort"?Thank you.
Les morts sont reven________ à la vie.The dead came back to life.
"Mort" masculine or feminine and when...
- « Back to Q&A Forum
- « Previous questionNext question »
Michael P.Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
"Mort" masculine or feminine and when...
This question relates to:French lesson "Agreeing past participle with subject's gender and number with (+ être) verbs in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)"
Asked 3 years ago
The sentence refers to ‘the dead’ in which case it is :
Le mort - “mort” is masculine. La morte - morte is feminine. “Les morts” has the grammatical gender masculine, even if it refers to a mixed group.
Mort is one of the nouns in French with both masculine and feminine grammatical gender, and changes meaning - la mort, feminine, means ‘death’.
Your dictionary should have both - wordreference does, as does Larousse:
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/mort/52565
https://www.thoughtco.com/french-nouns-with-two-genders-1371193
Don't have an account yet? Join today
Ask a question
Find your French level for FREE
Test your French to the CEFR standard
Find your French level