se tenir pénard
\sə tə.niʁ pe.naʁ\
The verdict
“se tenir pénard” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Se tenir tranquille ; éviter de se faire remarquer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-se-tenir-penard · se tenir pénard · French
se tenir pénard · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" 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 | se tenir pénard |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \sə tə.niʁ pe.naʁ\ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « se tenir pénard » en français
Rare enough to double-check
se tenir pénard is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \sə tə.niʁ pe.naʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Se tenir tranquille ; éviter de se faire remarquer.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for se tenir pénard, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is se tenir pénard, spelled S-E- -T-E-N-I-R- -P-É-N-A-R-D.
Definition
- 1Se tenir tranquille ; éviter de se faire remarquer.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how se tenir pénard appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Parfois aussi j’écoutais en moi comme une voix de manager : Tu t’es fait esquinter, mon petit gars, écœurer, ratatiner, eh bien ! te fais pas de mousse, récupère, respire à fond, mouche-toi le nez, tiens-toi pénard et laisse revenir la forme, tu en auras besoin ; et puisque tu as une bonne planque, profites-en tant que ça peut.
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.