protégé
French, noun
protégé is spelled P-R-O-T-É-G-É (7 letters) and appears 16 times per million words in written French, the 4,565th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Protégé is a French masculine noun meaning “protégé (person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced person)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a past participle of protéger. With an accent, protège is a different word: “first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Personne qui bénéficie d’une protection de la part de quelqu’un”.
What does protégé mean in English?
adjective
- 1
protected
noun
- 1
masculineprotégé (person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced person)
verb
- 1
past participle of protéger
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- 2
second-person singular imperative
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
adjective: 1. En parlant des choses, mis à l’abri. 2. En parlant des personnes, bénéficiant d’une protection de la part d’un puissant. 3. Se dit d’une variable dont la portée est restreinte aux classes qui en héritent.
noun: 1. Personne qui bénéficie d’une protection de la part de quelqu’un.
noun: 1. Protège-tibia.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of protégé
- protégée feminine
- protégés masculine plural
- protégées feminine plural
- protèges plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to protégé
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is protégé in French?
protégé appears 16 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).