patte

\pat\

/\pat\/ noun

The verdict

“patte” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #10,206) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#10,206
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Membre d’un animal quadrupède, d’un oiseau (à l’exception des oiseaux de proie), des arthropodes comme l’écrevisse, le homard, l’araignée, la mouche, etc.

Corpus desk

Index FR-patte · patte · French

patte · rank #10,206 · 4 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #10,206
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 4 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH Palestinien

Nearest frequency peer: Palestinien (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « patte »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « patte » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

patte vs PTT
0% similar
patte vs pote
60% similar
patte vs paye
60% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for patte
PropertyValue
Headwordpatte
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pat\
Letters5
Frequency rank#10,206
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « patte »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.pattese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Palestinien » (#10,205), « permets » (#10,207), « Pablo » (#10,204). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « patte » est au #10,206. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for patte is neighbouring look-alikes ("PTT", "pote", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \pat\. Frequency #10,206 among 6,826 “P” headwords. 11 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for patte, with forms such as "aptte", "patet", and "ppatte". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PTT", "pote", "paye", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is patte, spelled P-A-T-T-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Membre d’un animal quadrupède, d’un oiseau (à l’exception des oiseaux de proie), des arthropodes comme l’écrevisse, le homard, l’araignée, la mouche, etc.
  2. 2
    Main humaine.
  3. 3
    Jambe, pied humain.
  4. 4
    Se dit de la technique unique d’un artiste, du caractère de son œuvre.
  5. 5
    Instrument qui sert à régler du papier à musique, en traçant à la fois les cinq lignes parallèles qui forment une portée.
  6. 6
    Racine de certaines plantes, qui a quelque ressemblance avec la patte, la griffe d’un animal.
  7. 7
    Chacune des pièces triangulaire qui terminent à ses deux extrémités la partie courbe d’une ancre et qui la font mordre sur le fond.
  8. 8
    Morceau de fer pointu d’un bout, et plat de l’autre, qui, par le bout pointu, se fiche dans du bois ou se scelle dans du plâtre et, par l’autre bout, sert à fixer un lambris, un chambranle de porte, un châssis de croisée, etc.
  9. 9
    Bande pileuse sur la joue, juste devant les oreilles, conservée lors du rasage.
  10. 10
    Interface d'un routeur, généralement un port RJ45.
  11. 11
    Meuble représentant la patte d’un animal dans les armoiries. L’animal dont est extraite la patte doit être blasonné. À rapprocher de membre.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how patte appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. La rainette, atteinte en plein flanc, écartait les pattes et ouvrait la gueule en montrant son goitre blanc.
  2. Un chien qui donne la patte.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • aptte
  • patet
  • ppatte
  • ptate

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of patte - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

aptte2patet2ppatte1ptate2
Edit distance from "patte"

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

How do you spell "patte"?
"patte" is spelled P-A-T-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pat\.
What does "patte" mean?
As a noun, "patte" means: Membre d’un animal quadrupède, d’un oiseau (à l’exception des oiseaux de proie), des arthropodes comme l’écrevisse, le homard, l’araignée, la mouche, etc.
What words are commonly confused with "patte"?
"patte" is commonly confused with "PTT", "pote", "paye". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "patte"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "patte" is \pat\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "patte" come from?
"patte" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "patte", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list