French: -re verb derivatives: -nd to -nte
Self-tutoring about French: the tutor mentions the idea of détente.
I heard about “détente” when I was a kid: it was an easing of relations between the US and the Soviets, and extended to 1979. Its main players were Nixon and Brezhnev. (I hope, in a later post, to mention that perhaps it was Khrushchev, on the Soviet side, who may actually have enabled détente.)
As so often happens, a French word – détente – was used to signify the relaxation between the two countries. Détente means relaxation. The regular -re French verb détendre means to relax: elle détend means she relaxes, for instance.
It’s not the only case where the third-person present form of an -re verb transforms its ending from -nd to -nte to form a related noun. I’ll be mentioning others.
Source:
Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.