avoir la peau dure

verb

The verdict

“avoir la peau dure” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
18
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Être résistant à toutes les épreuves de la vie.

Key facts for avoir la peau dure
PropertyValue
Headwordavoir la peau dure
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
Letters18
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “avoir la peau dure” sits in French frequency

avoir la peau dure falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for avoir la peau dure is 18 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Être résistant à toutes les épreuves de la vie.".

No misspelling variants are generated for avoir la peau dure in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is avoir la peau dure, spelled A-V-O-I-R- -L-A- -P-E-A-U- -D-U-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Être résistant à toutes les épreuves de la vie.

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.

Cite this page

Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:

PlainSpell, “avoir la peau dure, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/avoir-la-peau-dure

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "avoir la peau dure"?
"avoir la peau dure" is spelled A-V-O-I-R- -L-A- -P-E-A-U- -D-U-R-E.
What does "avoir la peau dure" mean?
As a verb, "avoir la peau dure" means: Être résistant à toutes les épreuves de la vie.
What language does "avoir la peau dure" come from?
"avoir la peau dure" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “avoir la peau dure”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is A-V-O-I-R- -L-A- -P-E-A-U- -D-U-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter A in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list