tenir ferme
\tə.niʁ fɛʁm\
The verdict
“tenir ferme” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Résister ; ne pas céder ; se défendre.
Corpus desk
Index FR-tenir-ferme · tenir ferme · French
tenir ferme · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" 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 | tenir ferme |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \tə.niʁ fɛʁm\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « tenir ferme » en français
Rare enough to double-check
tenir ferme is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \tə.niʁ fɛʁm\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for tenir ferme, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is tenir ferme, spelled T-E-N-I-R- -F-E-R-M-E.
Definition
- 1Résister ; ne pas céder ; se défendre.
- 2Ne pas renoncer à, ne pas abandonner.
- 3Se tenir solidement
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tenir ferme appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce bataillon tint ferme jusqu’à ce qu’on amenât des renforts.
Toutefois il tient ferme et nous montre visage.
Synonyms
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.