père

\pɛʁ\

/\pɛʁ\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“père” has 6 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #303. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#303
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
6
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Mâle ayant fécondé un ovule qui a donné naissance à un enfant ; géniteur.

Corpus desk

Index FR-pere · père · French

père · rank #303 · 6 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #303
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 6 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH pris

Nearest frequency peer: pris (-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.

Frequency neighbourhood for “père”

Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)

corpus weight

What this shows Bars show where “père” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.

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).

père vs Pr
25% similar
père vs peu
25% similar
père vs pro
50% similar

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

Key facts for père
PropertyValue
Headwordpère
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pɛʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#303
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “père” sits in French frequency

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).père lands here:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 6 spelling variants around père (IPA \pɛʁ\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #303 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 10 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for père, with forms such as "pere", "ppère", and "prèe". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Pr", "peu", "pro", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is père, spelled P-È-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mâle ayant fécondé un ovule qui a donné naissance à un enfant ; géniteur.
  2. 2
    Individu mâle qui a pris le rôle et la responsabilité paternelle dans la vie d’un enfant.
  3. 3
    (Souvent au pluriel) Ascendant, quel que soit le degré de parenté.
  4. 4
    Celui qui a beaucoup fait pour la prospérité, pour le salut, pour le bonheur d’un peuple ou d’une classe nombreuse de personnes, qui agit envers ceux dont il prend soin comme un père agirait envers ses enfants.
  5. 5
    Père de l’Église.
  6. 6
    Homme ayant inventé ou fait naître une science, un art, une technique.
  7. 7
    Titre donné aux dignitaires des congrégations et des ordres religieux.
  8. 8
    Première personne de la sainte trinité, dans la doctrine chrétienne trinitaire.
  9. 9
    Homme d’un certain âge que l’on traite avec familiarité. Dans certains cas cette appellation peut contenir une nuance de déférence voire d’admiration affectueuse.
  10. 10
    Fête (souvent bachique), apparue dans l’armée pour célébrer un certain nombre de jours avant la quille.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Rabalan était le dernier représentant d’une famille de sorciers qui, durant plus d’un siècle, régnèrent dans Trélotte. Son arrière-grand-père, son grand-père, son père, tous ses oncles et tous ses cousins avaient été sorciers, et l’on racontait d’eux des choses terribles et merveilleuses.
  2. À mon père, inaccessible et caché comme un dieu, je ne saurais directement penser.

Synonyms

dabedarongéniteurpapapatervieux

This word in other languages

father(English)padre(Español)Vater(Deutsch)pai(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • pere
  • ppère
  • prèe
  • pèer
  • pèrre
  • èpre

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

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

pere1ppère1prèe2pèer2pèrre1èpre2
Edit distance from "père"

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.

PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "père"?
"père" is spelled P-È-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛʁ\.
What does "père" mean?
As a noun, "père" means: Mâle ayant fécondé un ovule qui a donné naissance à un enfant ; géniteur.
What words are commonly confused with "père"?
"père" is commonly confused with "Pr", "peu", "pro". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "père"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "père" is \pɛʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "père" come from?
"père" 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 "père", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

pris#302vois#298face#311quel#295

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).

aucun6 variantsMère6 variantsguerre6 variantshommes6 variants

What to do next

You've looked up "père". Here's where to go from here.

  • "père" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "Pr". View pair
  • 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
  • Usage frequency rank #303 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
  • Browse more French words in the "P" letter cohort. P–Z browse

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list