Skip to content

peut-être

maybe

adverb puh-TETR Common

Also means

perhaps

Usage Note

Peut-être literally fuses the words for 'can' and 'be', and in careful style it triggers inversion, as in peut-être viendra-t-il. In everyday speech people dodge that by adding quepeut-être qu'il viendra — which is far more common.

Examples

"Il viendra peut-être demain."

Natural Translation

Maybe he'll come tomorrow.

Literal Translation

He will-come perhaps tomorrow

Explore French by topic