pretendre

\pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\

/\pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\/ verb

The verdict

“pretendre” is uncommon French (frequency #90,059 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#90,059
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aspirer à, prétendre à.

Corpus desk

Index FR-pretendre · pretendre · French

pretendre · rank #90,059 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #90,059
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH primevère

Nearest frequency peer: primevère (+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 “pretendre”

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

corpus weight

What this shows Bars show where “pretendre” 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
Key facts for pretendre
PropertyValue
Headwordpretendre
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\
Letters9
Frequency rank#90,059
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Où “pretendre” se place dans la fréquence du français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.pretendrese place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « primevère » (#90,060), « prenable » (#90,056), « prodigieuses » (#90,062). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

pretendre is uncommon French at frequency #90,059 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Aspirer à, prétendre à.".

pretendre has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored 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 pretendre, spelled P-R-E-T-E-N-D-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Aspirer à, prétendre à.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Pretendiá qu’èra capable de se’n sortir sol.

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 "pretendre"?
"pretendre" is spelled P-R-E-T-E-N-D-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\.
What does "pretendre" mean?
As a verb, "pretendre" means: Aspirer à, prétendre à.
How do you pronounce "pretendre"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pretendre" is \pɾe.ten.ˈðɾe\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pretendre" come from?
"pretendre" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "pretendre", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

What to do next

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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