prétérit
\pʁe.te.ʁit\
The verdict
“prétérit” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Temps passé. Ne se dit plus guère aujourd’hui en français que du passé simple.
Corpus desk
Index FR-preterit · prétérit · French
prétérit · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | prétérit |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁe.te.ʁit\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « prétérit » en français
Rare enough to double-check
prétérit is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pʁe.te.ʁit\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Temps passé. Ne se dit plus guère aujourd’hui en français que du passé simple.".
Zero misspellings are on record for prétérit in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is prétérit, spelled P-R-É-T-É-R-I-T.
Definition
- 1Temps passé. Ne se dit plus guère aujourd’hui en français que du passé simple.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how prétérit appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le prétérit désigne, dans les langues qui n’établissent pas dans leur flexion verbale de distinction (de nature aspectuelle) entre différentes expressions du passé, comme celle du grec ancien entre imparfait, aoriste et parfait, ou celle des langues romanes entre imparfait et passé simple.
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.