tenir la main haute
The verdict
“tenir la main haute” 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) - Laisser peu de liberté à quelqu’un ; le tenir de court.
Corpus desk
Index FR-tenir-la-main-haute · tenir la main haute · French
tenir la main haute · 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 "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 la main haute |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « tenir la main haute » en français
Rare enough to double-check
tenir la main haute is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Laisser peu de liberté à quelqu’un ; le tenir de court.".
Zero misspellings are on record for tenir la main haute in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is tenir la main haute, spelled T-E-N-I-R- -L-A- -M-A-I-N- -H-A-U-T-E.
Definition
- 1Laisser peu de liberté à quelqu’un ; le tenir de court.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tenir la main haute appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Tenir la main haute dans une affaire.
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.