mettre la main à la poche

verb

The verdict

“mettre la main à la poche” 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
25
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Faire le geste de porter sa main à sa poche pour y prendre de l’argent.

Key facts for mettre la main à la poche
PropertyValue
Headwordmettre la main à la poche
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
Letters25
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “mettre la main à la poche” sits in French frequency

mettre la main à la poche 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 mettre la main à la poche is 25 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. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for mettre la main à la poche, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is mettre la main à la poche, spelled M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-A- -M-A-I-N- -À- -L-A- -P-O-C-H-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Faire le geste de porter sa main à sa poche pour y prendre de l’argent.
  2. 2
    Payer, financer.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "mettre la main à la poche"?
"mettre la main à la poche" is spelled M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-A- -M-A-I-N- -À- -L-A- -P-O-C-H-E.
What does "mettre la main à la poche" mean?
As a verb, "mettre la main à la poche" means: Faire le geste de porter sa main à sa poche pour y prendre de l’argent.
What language does "mettre la main à la poche" come from?
"mettre la main à la poche" 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 “mettre la main à la poche”

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

  • The one correct French spelling is M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-A- -M-A-I-N- -À- -L-A- -P-O-C-H-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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