Autrice or auteure: what’s the feminine of “auteur” in French?

For a woman who writes, French now has two words: autrice and auteure. For a long time the Académie française insisted on auteur for everyone. In 2019 it accepted feminine job titles and called autrice the most correct form, because it follows the pattern of actrice and directrice. Auteure spread first, especially in Québec, and remains common. Both are understood everywhere.

This short news video shows both side by side: the title says l’auteure, while the narrator calls the writer behind the La Femme de ménage thrillers cette autrice à succès, and also uses écrivaine, the feminine of écrivain. A rough guide: words ending in -teur that come from a verb often take -teuse (chanteur → chanteuse), the others often -trice (acteur → actrice). Autrice goes back to the Latin auctrix.