hautes

Haute is a French adjective meaning high, tall, or elevated. The plural feminine form is hautes, used to agree with feminine plural nouns. The related forms include haut (masculine singular), haute (feminine singular), et hauts (masculine plural). Etymologically, the word stems from Old French haut, which in turn comes from Latin altus, and it is cognate with English high. In modern French, adjectives such as haut/haute/hautes describe physical height, altitude, or elevation, and must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.

In use, hautes appears primarily as an attributive adjective before or after a feminine plural noun. For example, or in phrases like montagnes hautes (high mountains), vallées hautes (high valleys), or régions hautes (high regions). It can also occur in fixed expressions related to elevation, such as zones hautes or plateaux hauts in geographic descriptions.

In toponymy, hautes is common in compound place names to indicate upland or elevated areas. Notable examples include the French departments Hautes-Alpes (the High Alps) and Hautes-Pyrénées (the Upper Pyrenees). These names signal the geographical character of the region rather than describing a specific feature of every locality within it. The element is also found in other Francophone regions and in historical or descriptive nomenclature, sometimes taking on regional or topographic connotations beyond strict grammar.

In English-language contexts, haute or hautes are chiefly encountered in borrowed phrases (for example, Haute Couture) rather than as independent words; in those cases the feminine plural form is not treated as a standalone noun.