prétexter
\pʁe.tɛks.te\
The verdict
“prétexter” is uncommon French (frequency #82,371 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #82,371
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Prendre pour prétexte.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pretexter · prétexter · French
prétexter · rank #82,371 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #82,371
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH préservera
Nearest frequency peer: préservera (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « prétexter »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- prégnance
prégnance
17,633 corpus weight
- prémontré
prémontré
17,632 corpus weight
- préservera
préservera
17,631 corpus weight
- prétexter
prétexter
17,630 corpus weight
- publis
publis
17,628 corpus weight
- Punjab
Punjab
17,627 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « prétexter » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | prétexter |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \pʁe.tɛks.te\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #82,371 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « prétexter » en français
Rare enough to double-check
prétexter is uncommon French at frequency #82,371 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \pʁe.tɛks.te\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Prendre pour prétexte.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for prétexter in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is prétexter, spelled P-R-É-T-E-X-T-E-R.
Definition
- 1Prendre pour prétexte.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how prétexter appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il s’était exempté de voisiner, en prétextant de ses occupations, de ses habitudes et de sa santé, qui ne lui permettaient pas, disait-il, de revenir la nuit par une route le long de laquelle brouillassait la Thune.
Crispée de jalousie, elle observait le manège de Régine qui, à la fin de la soirée, jouant les étonnées, prétexta que le dernier train pour le Vésinet était depuis longtemps parti pour me prier de l'héberger dans mon studio.
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); 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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "prétexter", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).