How to Conjugate the French Verb 'Battre' (to Beat)

The French word battre means to beat. (The reflexive se battre means to fight, as does the verb combattre.) It is an irregular -re verb, meaning you'll have to memorize the conjugations, rather than rely knowing on the regular -re conjugation pattern.

How to Conjugate the French Verb Battre

You can start as you would when conjugating a regular -re verb and determine the stem by dropping the -re (batt-).

Here's where things deviate from a regular verb: In the present tense, the singular forms also drop the second t. These charts show you how to conjugate this irregular verb. (Other verbs that include battre, like abattre, combattre and débattre, also follow this irregular pattern.)

How to Use Battre in the Past Tense

Though this is a lesson about simple conjugation, it's important to touch on the compound tense passé composé, as it is the most common way to put something in the past tense in French.

For battre, the auxiliary verb is avoir and the past participle is battu.

For example:

Il a battu les oeufs avec une fourchette.
He beat the eggs with a fork.