passer par la tête
\pa.se paʁ la tɛt\
The verdict
“passer par la tête” 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
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - On dit d’une idée qu’elle passe par la tête lorsqu’on y parvient sans démarche cognitive volontaire, uniquement par libre association d’idées.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | passer par la tête |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pa.se paʁ la tɛt\ |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “passer par la tête” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for passer par la tête is 18 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pa.se paʁ la tɛt\. 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: "On dit d’une idée qu’elle passe par la tête lorsqu’on y parvient sans démarche cognitive volontaire, uniquement par libre association d’idées.".
passer par la tête doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is passer par la tête, spelled P-A-S-S-E-R- -P-A-R- -L-A- -T-Ê-T-E.
Definition
- 1On dit d’une idée qu’elle passe par la tête lorsqu’on y parvient sans démarche cognitive volontaire, uniquement par libre association d’idées.
This word in other languages
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
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Using “passer par la tête”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-A-S-S-E-R- -P-A-R- -L-A- -T-Ê-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pa.se paʁ la tɛt\ (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
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.