se tenir tranquille
\sə tə.niʁ tʁɑ̃.kil\
The verdict
“se tenir tranquille” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Demeurer sage, ne pas faire des histoires, ne pas se faire remarquer.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | se tenir tranquille |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \sə tə.niʁ tʁɑ̃.kil\ |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “se tenir tranquille” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for se tenir tranquille is 19 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sə tə.niʁ tʁɑ̃.kil\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Demeurer sage, ne pas faire des histoires, ne pas se faire remarquer.".
se tenir tranquille doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is se tenir tranquille, spelled S-E- -T-E-N-I-R- -T-R-A-N-Q-U-I-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Demeurer sage, ne pas faire des histoires, ne pas se faire remarquer.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “se tenir tranquille”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-E- -T-E-N-I-R- -T-R-A-N-Q-U-I-L-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \sə tə.niʁ tʁɑ̃.kil\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.