passé composé

/\pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\/ noun

The verdict

“passé composé” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
13
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Temps de la conjugaison des verbes français utilisé pour la narration à l’oral et à l’écrit, et exprimant un événement déroulé ou un état achevé dans le passé.

Key facts for passé composé
PropertyValue
Headwordpassé composé
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “passé composé” sits in French frequency

passé composé 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 passé composé is 13 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\. 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: "Temps de la conjugaison des verbes français utilisé pour la narration à l’oral et à l’écrit, et exprimant un événement déroulé ou un état achevé dans le passé.".

No misspelling variants are generated for passé composé 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 passé composé, spelled P-A-S-S-É- -C-O-M-P-O-S-É, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Temps de la conjugaison des verbes français utilisé pour la narration à l’oral et à l’écrit, et exprimant un événement déroulé ou un état achevé dans le passé.

Synonyms

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "passé composé"?
"passé composé" is spelled P-A-S-S-É- -C-O-M-P-O-S-É. The IPA pronunciation is \pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\.
What does "passé composé" mean?
As a noun, "passé composé" means: Temps de la conjugaison des verbes français utilisé pour la narration à l’oral et à l’écrit, et exprimant un événement déroulé ou un état achevé dans le passé.
How do you pronounce "passé composé"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "passé composé" is \pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "passé composé" come from?
"passé composé" 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 “passé composé”

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

  • The one correct French spelling is P-A-S-S-É- -C-O-M-P-O-S-É — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \pa.se kɔ̃.po.ze\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter P 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.