patou
\pa.tu\
The verdict
“patou” is uncommon French (frequency #54,784 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,784
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Race de grand chien molossoïde type chien de montagne, chien de protection de troupeau des Pyrénées, au poil bien fourni, souvent à robe blanche.
Corpus desk
Index FR-patou · patou · French
patou · rank #54,784 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,784
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH Parthénon
Nearest frequency peer: Parthénon (-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 « patou »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- parements
parements
45,220 corpus weight
- parrainée
parrainée
45,219 corpus weight
- Parthénon
Parthénon
45,218 corpus weight
- patou
patou
45,217 corpus weight
- pavement
pavement
45,216 corpus weight
- peignent
peignent
45,214 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « patou » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | patou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pa.tu\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #54,784 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « patou » en français
Rare enough to double-check
patou is uncommon French at frequency #54,784 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pa.tu\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for patou in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is patou, spelled P-A-T-O-U.
Definition
- 1Race de grand chien molossoïde type chien de montagne, chien de protection de troupeau des Pyrénées, au poil bien fourni, souvent à robe blanche.
- 2En Bretagne, gardien de vaches.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how patou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
À l’instar de nombreux paysans du coin, cet éleveur de brebis tarasconnaises refuse les mesures de protection proposées par les pouvoirs publics : chien patou pour éloigner l’ours, clôtures pour regrouper les bêtes la nuit, gardiennage salarié, construction de cabanes de bergers…
On retrouve par exemple Teepee, une border collie croisée patou, ou Ilka, une femelle bouvier bernois.
Synonyms
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 "patou", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).