tenir le coup
\tə.niʁ lə ku\
The verdict
“tenir le coup” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Résister aux coups de vent et de mer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-tenir-le-coup · tenir le coup · French
tenir le coup · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 le coup |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \tə.niʁ lə ku\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « tenir le coup » en français
Rare enough to double-check
tenir le coup is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \tə.niʁ lə ku\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for tenir le coup, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is tenir le coup, spelled T-E-N-I-R- -L-E- -C-O-U-P.
Definition
- 1Résister aux coups de vent et de mer.
- 2Supporter avec fermeté, voire surmonter, quelque chose de long, pénible, désagréable ou douloureux.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tenir le coup appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Des bateaux j'en ai pris beaucoup, mais le seul qui ait tenu le coup, qui n’ait jamais viré de bord […]
On lui avait dit, la veille, que M. Deneulin, le propriétaire d’une fosse voisine, ne savait comment tenir le coup.
This word in other languages
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.