prendre les devants
\pʁɑ̃.dʁə lɛ də.vɑ̃\
The verdict
“prendre les devants” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Partir avant quelqu’un ; le dépasser en allant plus vite.
Corpus desk
Index FR-prendre-les-devants · prendre les devants · French
prendre les devants · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 19 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | prendre les devants |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pʁɑ̃.dʁə lɛ də.vɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « prendre les devants » en français
Rare enough to double-check
prendre les devants is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \pʁɑ̃.dʁə lɛ də.vɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for prendre les devants in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 prendre les devants, spelled P-R-E-N-D-R-E- -L-E-S- -D-E-V-A-N-T-S.
Definition
- 1Partir avant quelqu’un ; le dépasser en allant plus vite.
- 2Devancer ; gagner de vitesse.
- 3Anticiper.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how prendre les devants appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Rictiovare ne laissa pas de commander que l'on chargeât de lourdes chaînes le cou et tous les membres du saint martyr, avec injonction expresse aux soldats qui devaient le conduire, de le garder avec le plus grand soin; que du reste, ils prissent les devants, jusqu'à ce que lui-même les eût rejoints.
Capitaine, prenez les devants, et voyez un peu s'il dit vrai. Pillardof enfonça ses éperons dans le ventre de son cheval, qui fit quelques bonds en avant.
Synonyms
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.