détenue
\de.tə.ny\
The verdict
“détenue” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #15,613 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #15,613
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Femme détenue.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | détenue |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \de.tə.ny\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #15,613 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “détenue” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for détenue is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \de.tə.ny\. Corpus data places it at rank #15,613 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Femme détenue.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for détenue, with forms such as "ddétenue", "detenue", and "dtéenue". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "devenu", "devenue", "déteste", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 détenue, spelled D-É-T-E-N-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Femme détenue.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddétenue,detenue,dtéenue,déetnue,déteneu,détennue,déteune,détneue,déttenue,édtenue
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of détenue - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “détenue, 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/detenue
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "détenue"?
What does "détenue" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "détenue"?
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What language does "détenue" come from?
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Using “détenue”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-É-T-E-N-U-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \de.tə.ny\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “devenu” - see the side-by-side comparison. détenue vs devenu
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our French index: