Words & Stuff

Merriam-Webster defines the verb tutoyer as “to address familiarly.” But it comes more specifically from (as Wiktionary puts it) addressing someone in French “using the informal second-person pronoun tu rather than the formal vous.”

I was going to say that there’s no equivalent in English, but it turns out that there is an English verb thou, meaning “To address (a person) using the pronoun thou, especially as an expression of contempt or familiarity.”

The opposite of tutoyer is vouvoy or vousvoyer, also written as vouvoyer or voussoyer: “To address (someone) in French using the formal second-person pronoun vous.”

See also T–V distinction and vouvoiement.