rendez-vous (French)

Where does "rendez-vous" come from?

The French noun 'rendez-vous' originates as the second person plural imperative form of the verb 'se rendre'[1], utilizing the pronoun 'vous'[2].

Full etymology tree

• rendez-vous (French), 'date'
  • compound rendez (French), 'inflection of rendre:'
  • compound vous (French), 'the plural personal pronoun in the second person:'
    • inherited vous (Middle French), 'you (plural or polite)'
      • inherited vos, vous (Old French)
        • inherited vos (Latin), 'you, ye, you all; nominative/accusative/vocative plural of tū'
          • inherited *wōs (Proto-Italic), 'you (second-person plural)'

Descendants and derived words

• rendezvous (English)
• rendezvous (English)
• avoir rendez-vous (French)
• rendez-vous galant (French)
• Rendezvous (German)
• ραντεβού (Greek)
• randevou (Haitian Creole)
• randevú (Hungarian)
• ランデブー (Japanese)
• randka (Polish)
• rendez-vous (Polish)
• rendez-vous (Portuguese)

Sources

1. rendez-vous (French) - Wiktionary
2. vous (French) - Wiktionary

Updated August 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris