craindre

Craindre means to fear or be afraid of, used for people, things, and situations (craindre le pire, craindre la chaleur). It's an irregular verb from the -aindre/-eindre/-oindre family (like peindre and joindre): the d disappears in most forms and the stem shifts to -gn- in the plural (je crains, nous craignons).

• Cette plante craint le gel. — This plant can't handle frost.
• Je crains de ne pas avoir le temps. — I'm afraid I won't have time.
• Il ne craint personne. — He's afraid of no one.

Craindre + que normally takes ne before the following subjunctive verb in careful/written French (je crains qu'il ne pleuve, I'm afraid it will rain) — this ne is not a negation and doesn't mean 'afraid it won't'; dropping it is fine in casual speech, but learners who see it often misread the sentence as negative.

• quote "Il ne faut craindre rien, quand on a tout à craindre" — A line attributed to 17th-century playwright Pierre Corneille, still cited today as a classic paradox about courage in the face of danger.