pied-à-terre
/pi.eɪ.dəˈtɛɹ/
"pied-a-terre" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pied-à-terre” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A smaller temporary or secondary lodging; a second home, especially one in the city.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pied-a-terre · pied-à-terre · English
pied-à-terre · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pied-à-terre |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pi.eɪ.dəˈtɛɹ/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “pied-à-terre” in English
Rare enough to double-check
pied-à-terre is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /pi.eɪ.dəˈtɛɹ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A smaller temporary or secondary lodging; a second home, especially one in the city.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for pied-à-terre, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French pied-à-terre (“foot on the ground”). The correct English form is pied-à-terre, spelled P-I-E-D---À---T-E-R-R-E.
Definition
- 1A smaller temporary or secondary lodging; a second home, especially one in the city.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pied-à-terre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
But the pied-à-terre at the embassy provides little privacy and has none of the grandeur for the formal events that an American ambassador posted to the United States’ closest Middle East ally is expected to host.
Etymology
Borrowed from French pied-à-terre (“foot on the ground”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.