pêne
\pɛn\
The verdict
“pêne” is uncommon French (frequency #89,040 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,040
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Partie d’une serrure qu’on fait aller et venir avec la clef et qui entre dans la gâche de manière à fermer la porte à laquelle est adaptée la serrure.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pene · pêne · French
pêne · rank #89,040 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #89,040
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH pétillent
Nearest frequency peer: pétillent (-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 « pêne »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- pédalant
pédalant
10,965 corpus weight
- péninsulaire
péninsulaire
10,964 corpus weight
- pétillent
pétillent
10,962 corpus weight
- pêne
pêne
10,961 corpus weight
- Qingdao
Qingdao
10,960 corpus weight
- quaresma
quaresma
10,959 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « pêne » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pêne |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pɛn\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #89,040 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « pêne » en français
Rare enough to double-check
pêne is uncommon French at frequency #89,040 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pɛn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Partie d’une serrure qu’on fait aller et venir avec la clef et qui entre dans la gâche de manière à fermer la porte à laquelle est adaptée la serrure.".
Zero misspellings are on record for pêne in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is pêne, spelled P-Ê-N-E.
Definition
- 1Partie d’une serrure qu’on fait aller et venir avec la clef et qui entre dans la gâche de manière à fermer la porte à laquelle est adaptée la serrure.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pêne appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Pêne à demi-tour ou à ressort : sorte de pêne dont l’extrémité est taillée en biseau et qu’on peut faire aller et venir sans le secours de la clef.
Pêne dormant : pêne ordinaire, c’est-à-dire qui ne se meut qu’avec le secours de la clef.
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); 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 "pêne"?
What does "pêne" mean?
How do you pronounce "pêne"?
What language does "pêne" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pêne", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).