contenaient

\kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\

/\kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\/ verb

The verdict

“contenaient” has 16 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #28,114. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#28,114
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
16
tracked misspellings
5
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de contenir.

Corpus desk

Index FR-contenaient · contenaient · French

contenaient · rank #28,114 · 16 variants · 5 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #28,114
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 5 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 16 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH consonnes

Nearest frequency peer: consonnes (-1 rank slots)

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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « contenaient »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « contenaient » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

contenaient vs contenant
82% similar
contenaient vs contenait
82% similar
contenaient vs contentent
82% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for contenaient
PropertyValue
Headwordcontenaient
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\
Letters11
Frequency rank#28,114
Misspellings tracked16
Confusable pairs5
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « contenaient »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).contenaientse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « consonnes » (#28,113), « contestent » (#28,115), « congrégations » (#28,112). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « contenaient » est au #28,114. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 16 spelling variants around contenaient (IPA \kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\), averb. Corpus frequency is #28,114 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de contenir.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 16 likely wrong-spelling variants for contenaient, with forms such as "ccontenaient", "cnotenaient", and "conetnaient". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "contenant", "contenait", "contentent", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is contenaient, spelled C-O-N-T-E-N-A-I-E-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de contenir.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how contenaient appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Malgré les précautions prises par le notaire, qui vint au-devant de la carriole, il se trouva des témoins, et l’on vit descendre les porte-manteaux et les sacoches qui contenaient l’argent.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ccontenaient
  • cnotenaient
  • conetnaient
  • conntenaient
  • conteanient
  • contenaeint
  • contenaiennt
  • contenaientt
  • contenaietn
  • contenainet
  • conteniaent
  • contennaient
  • contneaient
  • conttenaient
  • cotnenaient
  • ocntenaient

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of contenaient - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

ccontenaient1cnotenaient2conetnaient2conntenaient1conteanient2contenaeint2contenaiennt1contenaientt1
Edit distance from "contenaient"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "contenaient"?
"contenaient" is spelled C-O-N-T-E-N-A-I-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\.
What does "contenaient" mean?
As a verb, "contenaient" means: Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de contenir.
What words are commonly confused with "contenaient"?
"contenaient" is commonly confused with "contenant", "contenait", "contentent". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "contenaient"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "contenaient" is \kɔ̃.tə.nɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "contenaient" come from?
"contenaient" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "contenaient", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (16 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list