pénitente
\pe.ni.tɑ̃t\
The verdict
“pénitente” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Celle qui se repent de ses péchés et fait pénitence ; celle qui confesse ses péchés au prêtre.
Corpus desk
Index FR-penitente · pénitente · French
pénitente · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pénitente |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pe.ni.tɑ̃t\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « pénitente » en français
Rare enough to double-check
pénitente is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pe.ni.tɑ̃t\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for pénitente, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is pénitente, spelled P-É-N-I-T-E-N-T-E.
Definition
- 1Celle qui se repent de ses péchés et fait pénitence ; celle qui confesse ses péchés au prêtre.
- 2Membre féminin d'une confrérie religieuse qui organise des processions où l'on simule le repentir.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pénitente appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…], et, quoiqu'elle n'eût pas été élevée très religieusement, elle avait demandé a sa gouvernante de la conduire à l'église Saint-Augustin où affluaient, ce jour-là, les pénitentes de distinction.
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.