prise d’otage
\pʁiz d‿ɔ.taʒ\
The verdict
“prise d’otage” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Détention de personnes contre leurs volontés ; le plus souvent afin de revendiquer quelque chose.
Corpus desk
Index FR-prise-d-otage · prise d’otage · French
prise d’otage · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 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 | prise d’otage |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁiz d‿ɔ.taʒ\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “prise d’otage” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
prise d’otage is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pʁiz d‿ɔ.taʒ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
prise d’otage doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file 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 prise d’otage, spelled P-R-I-S-E- -D-’-O-T-A-G-E.
Definition
- 1Détention de personnes contre leurs volontés ; le plus souvent afin de revendiquer quelque chose.
- 2Action perçue comme entravant la liberté de déplacement, comme une forme de chantage.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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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.