tortue

/\tɔʁ.ty\/ noun

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#10,960

in French word usage

Misspellings

8

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

tortue is aFrenchnoun. It means: Reptile à quatre pieds, qui marche très lentement, et dont tout le corps, à la réserve de la tête, des pieds et de la queue, est couvert d’une grande coquille dure et le plus souvent garnie d’écail... Pronounced \tɔʁ.ty\. Often confused with true and toute.

Key facts for tortue
PropertyValue
Headwordtortue
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\tɔʁ.ty\
Letters6
Frequency rank#10,960
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of tortue in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for tortue is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \tɔʁ.ty\. Corpus data places it at rank #10,960 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for tortue, with forms such as "otrtue", "torrtue", and "torteu". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "true", "toute", "troue", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is tortue, spelled T-O-R-T-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Reptile à quatre pieds, qui marche très lentement, et dont tout le corps, à la réserve de la tête, des pieds et de la queue, est couvert d’une grande coquille dure et le plus souvent garnie d’écailles.
  2. 2
    Personne lente.
  3. 3
    Sorte de carapace de l’Antiquité romaine que les soldats formaient en tenant leurs boucliers au-dessus de leur tête et en les serrant les uns contre les autres, pour être à couvert des traits de l’ennemi.
  4. 4
    Machine de guerre, souvent un bélier, montée sur des roues et couverte, à l’abri de laquelle on pouvait s’avancer jusqu’au pied des murailles d’une ville assiégée.
  5. 5
    Regroupement de joueurs debout et liés, comprenant au minimum le porteur du ballon, l’un de ses équipiers et un adversaire.
  6. 6
    Appareil d’audioconférence ou visioconférence.
  7. 7
    Sauce qui était initialement conçue pour accompagner la tortue, mais qui actuellement se sert avec la tête de veau. Faite de tomates, de vin de Madère, d’infusion d’herbes aromatiques, d’essence de truffe et d’un peu de piment de Cayenne.
  8. 8
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Elle est généralement représentée vue de dessus, sa position doit être blasonnée.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: otrtue,torrtue,torteu,torttue,torute,totrue,trotue,ttortue

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tortue

Misspelling Variants of "tortue"

otrtue6torrtue7torteu6torttue7torute6totrue6trotue6ttortue7
Misspelling Variants of "tortue"

Frequency rank: #10,960 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tortue"?
"tortue" is spelled T-O-R-T-U-E. The IPA pronunciation is \tɔʁ.ty\.
What does "tortue" mean?
As a noun, "tortue" means: Reptile à quatre pieds, qui marche très lentement, et dont tout le corps, à la réserve de la tête, des pieds et de la queue, est couvert d’une grande coquille dure et le plus souvent garnie d’écail...
What words are commonly confused with "tortue"?
"tortue" is commonly confused with "true", "toute", "troue". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "tortue"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tortue" is \tɔʁ.ty\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tortue" come from?
"tortue" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter T in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.