protégée

\pʁɔ.te.ʒe\

/\pʁɔ.te.ʒe\/ noun

The verdict

“protégée” has 12 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #7,612. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#7,612
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
12
tracked misspellings
11
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Femme protégée.

Corpus desk

Index FR-protegee · protégée · French

protégée · rank #7,612 · 12 variants · 11 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #7,612
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 11 pairs
  • VAR-MID 12 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH proposées

Nearest frequency peer: proposées (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « protégée »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « protégée » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

protégée vs protégés
88% similar
protégée vs protéine
75% similar
protégée vs protégez
75% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for protégée
PropertyValue
Headwordprotégée
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pʁɔ.te.ʒe\
Letters8
Frequency rank#7,612
Misspellings tracked12
Confusable pairs11
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « protégée »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).protégéese place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « proposées » (#7,611), « préférable » (#7,613), « philosophique » (#7,610). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « protégée » est au #7,612. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 12 spelling variants around protégée (IPA \pʁɔ.te.ʒe\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,612 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Femme protégée.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for protégée, with forms such as "portégée", "pprotégée", and "protegee". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "protégés", "protéine", "protégez", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is protégée, spelled P-R-O-T-É-G-É-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Femme protégée.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Donc, la châtelaine mignarde ma protégée, la baisotte, la glitouille, s’incline pour une caresse du médius en accent circonflexe sur le délicat bigornuche rose, lui glousse des embryons de mots, des soupirs pâmants, des inarticuleries qui flanquent le bâton de Guignol dans le bénoche de l’ami Sana.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • portégée
  • pprotégée
  • protegee
  • protgéée
  • prottégée
  • protégeé
  • protéggée
  • protéége
  • proétgée
  • prrotégée
  • prtoégée
  • rpotégée

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of protégée - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

portégée2pprotégée1protegee2protgéée2prottégée1protégeé2protéggée1protéége2
Edit distance from "protégée"

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 "protégée"?
"protégée" is spelled P-R-O-T-É-G-É-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pʁɔ.te.ʒe\.
What does "protégée" mean?
As a noun, "protégée" means: Femme protégée.
What words are commonly confused with "protégée"?
"protégée" is commonly confused with "protégés", "protéine", "protégez". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "protégée"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "protégée" is \pʁɔ.te.ʒe\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "protégée" come from?
"protégée" 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 "protégée", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (12 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list