PERTELOTE is Chauntecleer's favorite hen and his severest critic in The Nun's Priest's Tale. She misinterprets his dream of the fox and advises Chauntecleer to take a laxative when he needs to be shrewd and alert to the fox's flattery. In Pierre de Saint Cloud's Roman de Renart, the name of the Cock's wife is Pinte. R.A. Pratt suggests that, in his creation of Pertelote's character, Chaucer may have been influenced by the clerc de Troyes's creation in Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait. [Chauntecleer: Renard]

Pertelote, formed by the reduplication of sounds, never occurs initially. It appears eight times in medial positions, NPT 2888, 3105, 3122, 3158, 3177, 3200, 3268, 3362; and once in final rhyming position, NPT 2870.