prendre au dépourvu
\pʁɑ̃.dʁ‿o de.puʁ.vy\
The verdict
“prendre au dépourvu” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Surprendre quelqu’un, ou quelque chose, au point qu’il ne puisse se prémunir efficacement, ou dans les temps, contre cet imprévu.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | prendre au dépourvu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pʁɑ̃.dʁ‿o de.puʁ.vy\ |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “prendre au dépourvu” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for prendre au dépourvu is 19 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pʁɑ̃.dʁ‿o de.puʁ.vy\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Surprendre quelqu’un, ou quelque chose, au point qu’il ne puisse se prémunir efficacement, ou dans les temps, contre cet imprévu.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for prendre au dépourvu, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is prendre au dépourvu, spelled P-R-E-N-D-R-E- -A-U- -D-É-P-O-U-R-V-U.
Definition
- 1Surprendre quelqu’un, ou quelque chose, au point qu’il ne puisse se prémunir efficacement, ou dans les temps, contre cet imprévu.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “prendre au dépourvu”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-R-E-N-D-R-E- -A-U- -D-É-P-O-U-R-V-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pʁɑ̃.dʁ‿o de.puʁ.vy\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.