What does 'soutirer' mean in French?
Une retraitée ruinée par la voyance par téléphone
B2 French listening practice · French from France · Picked for people who know more
Soutirer is one of French’s most pointed verbs for extraction-by-manipulation. Soutirer de l’argent à quelqu’un (wheedle money out of someone), soutirer des informations (drag information out), soutirer des aveux (squeeze out a confession). The verb is heavier than obtenir: it carries the implication that the person handed over what you wanted because you played them.
In this segment, a retiree explains how phone voyants walked her through €44,000 of savings: « ils ont profité de ce que j’avais besoin de savoir [...] pour me soutirer un maximum de fric » (they exploited my need to know to wheedle the maximum cash out of me). Soutirer is exactly the verb for that pattern.
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than B2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸On French news magazines like Envoyé spécial on France 2 and Cash Investigation on France 2 when reporters cover financial scams
- ▸In French legal coverage on Le Parisien and Le Monde when journalists describe fraud, abus de faiblesse, or police-interrogation tactics
- ▸In French crime fiction by Fred Vargas and Pierre Lemaitre where investigators soutirer des aveux during interrogations
- ▸In French consumer-protection segments on 60 Millions de consommateurs and UFC-Que Choisir when victims explain how they were emptied out