entretenaient
\ɑ̃.tʁə.tə.nɛ\
The verdict
“entretenaient” is uncommon French (frequency #50,813 among 3,255 “E” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,813
- frequency rank, French
- 3,255
- “E” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de entretenir.
Corpus desk
Index FR-entretenaient · entretenaient · French
entretenaient · rank #50,813 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,813
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,255
- PHOTO-FINISH entremêlent
Nearest frequency peer: entremêlent (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « entretenaient »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- enfanter
enfanter
49,193 corpus weight
- ennuyeuses
ennuyeuses
49,191 corpus weight
- ensanglantée
ensanglantée
49,190 corpus weight
- entremêlent
entremêlent
49,189 corpus weight
- entretenaie…
entretenaient
49,188 corpus weight
- estomacs
estomacs
49,185 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « entretenaient » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | entretenaient |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ɑ̃.tʁə.tə.nɛ\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Frequency rank | #50,813 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « entretenaient » en français
Rare enough to double-check
entretenaient is uncommon French at frequency #50,813 among 3,255 “E” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ɑ̃.tʁə.tə.nɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de entretenir.".
entretenaient doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is entretenaient, spelled E-N-T-R-E-T-E-N-A-I-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de entretenir.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how entretenaient appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Si le féminisme de la chroniqueuse Carrie Bradshaw paraît très soft par rapport aux standards actuels, ses aventures ont bouleversé la relation que bien des femmes entretenaient avec leur corps, leur sexualité et leur désir, et ont grandement fait avancer le traitement des personnages féminins à la télévision.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "entretenaient", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 13 letters (nearest by frequency rank).