retenir son haleine
\ʁə.tə.niʁ sɔ̃.n‿a.lɛn\
The verdict
“retenir son haleine” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - S’arrêter temporairement et volontairement de respirer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-retenir-son-haleine · retenir son haleine · French
retenir son haleine · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 19 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "R" 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 | retenir son haleine |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ʁə.tə.niʁ sɔ̃.n‿a.lɛn\ |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « retenir son haleine » en français
Rare enough to double-check
retenir son haleine is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \ʁə.tə.niʁ sɔ̃.n‿a.lɛn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "S’arrêter temporairement et volontairement de respirer.".
retenir son haleine has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, 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 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 retenir son haleine, spelled R-E-T-E-N-I-R- -S-O-N- -H-A-L-E-I-N-E.
Definition
- 1S’arrêter temporairement et volontairement de respirer.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how retenir son haleine appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ouroz, de surprise, retint son haleine.
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.