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I've been trying to pay more attention to word roots and while I've been reading I've been noticing a lot of verbs ending in -uiller or more simply just -iller, such as éparpiller, écarquiller, frétiller, and so on, and then found this large list although many of those seem to be archaic or rare, at least they are not in my French-English dictionary.

Does the -iller ending have any significance? Or is it somewhat arbitrary and unimportant, merely a fact of the language that many verbs end that way, much like -ate in English? (e.g. indicate, relegate, substantiate, etc)

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    Weirdly hostile comment, jesus. Been using this site a long time and never had anyone say "What difference to you is it --" lmao like what? What's the point of joining a Q&A site to antagonize people for taking an interest in the subtleties of the language? Sorry I didn't grow up speaking your language and have had to work really hard to understand it and appreciate all its finer points, my bad, I'll try to be born in France next time so that it can be obvious to me too. Commented Oct 21, 2024 at 3:08
  • Sorry if I overreacted: it irks me that I can't find the logic in your question, which has nothing to do with your fluency in French. Do you really believe the mass of verbs which end in -ate is "somewhat arbitrary and unimportant, merely a fact of the English language"? Because it is also a regular, even systematic pattern for the derivation of English verbs from Latin substantives and certainly you know it. If this is "unimportant" to you, what import could possibly have any historical explanation of the -iller ending in French? Commented Oct 21, 2024 at 8:14
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    @FrançoisJurain: "certainly you know it" - many people don't know that! Why should they? Commented Oct 21, 2024 at 9:55
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    @FrançoisJurain There are lots of cases where a suffix used to derive verbs carries a specific meaning, both in French and English. For example, -(i)fy makes causative verbs meaning ‘to make X become Y’, -le makes frequentative verbs, etc. These are more or less productive suffixes that can be used to form new verbs with those meaning (e.g., couchify = make something become couch-like, skipple = move with little skips). Conversely, -ate is purely etymological debris; it says nothing about the meaning of the verb, only about its etymology. Commented Oct 21, 2024 at 10:47
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    Janus Bahs Jacquet is exactly correct and I agree with every word they wrote. -ate only tells you etymological roots and is therefore not very useful to inferring a new word's meaning, whereas ify speaks directly to its meaning and is therefore very useful. This question I have posted is precisely to determine whether iller is more like -ate or more like -ify, because if it's like -ify then it's helpful in inferring meaning for new words. I'm almost honored someone else understood so perfectly, and honestly confused as to why this is so opaque to you. Commented Oct 22, 2024 at 2:37

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Le bon usage :

La dérivation médiate¹ fournit en général des verbes exprimant une nuance diminutive, péjorative ou méprisante.
-ailler, -iller, -ouiller ont un sens fréquentatif ou diminutif.

Je pense que le plus souvent ils expriment les deux : sens fréquentatif et diminutif.
Boitiller (boiter un peu)
Tournailler (tourner sans but)
Tirailler (tirer un peu)
Toussailler (tousser un peu et souvent)
Titiller (exciter légèrement)
Mordiller (mordre légèrement et à plusieurs reprises)
Trainailler (trainer sans lentement et longtemps)
Criailler (crier sans cesse de façon désagréable)
Discutailler (discuter sans arrêt pour des broutilles)
Bousiller (faire un mauvais travail)
Criticailler (critiquer à répétition et sans motif)
Piailler (pousser des petits cris désagréables)

Chatouiller (exciter quelqu'un par des petits attouchements légers et répétés)
Frétiller (s'agiter avec des petits mouvements rapides)
Sautiller

Et ceux que j'ai cités ci-dessus, à part les trois derniers, peuvent aussi être péjoratifs selon le contexte dans lequel ils sont employés.

Certains sont uniquement péjoratifs comme : politicailler, couchailler, pleurailler, étripailler, etc.

En général ne veut pas dire toujours, et donc je ne pense pas que l'on puisse faire rentrer tous les verbes formés avec un de ces suffixes dans une des cases. J'ai du mal avec écarquiller que tu cites, à la rigueur, péjoratif dans la mesure où ça veut dire ouvrir de façon démesurée, mais c'est discutable. De même pour éparpiller qui veut dire jeter ça et là, de façon irrégulière.

¹ Le bon usage : La dérivation est immédiate quand les suffixes sont simples comme dans loger, log-er : elle est médiate quand les suffixes sont complexes, comme dans vivre, viv-ot-er ; dent, dent-el-er.

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    Dans le même genre, il y a le suffixe en -oter (même si ce n'est pas l'objet de la question) : toussoter, marchoter, parloter, touilloter... Commented Oct 21, 2024 at 8:58

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