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A new practical formulation of the load-transfer P-Y curves to analyze the load–deflection response of a single pile under lateral loads is proposed in this paper. Parameters of the P-Y curves, namely the lateral reaction modulus and the lateral soil resistance, were correlated to the pre-bored pressuremeter (PMT) data as well as to the pile/soil stiffness ratio. A total of 16 full-scale monotonic lateral loading tests carried out in six experimental sites in France, representing a variety of soil conditions, were interpreted focused on the construction of the experimental P-Y curves along the test pile. For practical purposes, a methodology of construction of the P-Y curves was proposed. Moreover, the paper highlights the new concept of the critical deflection, which is the threshold of the nonlinear pile/soil response, as well as a classification of piles based on the pile/soil stiffness ratio. The process of validation of the proposed P-Y curve-based method was undertaken by comparing the predicted load–deflection curves to the experimental curves of several test piles within a medium-sized database, and a very good predictive capability was noticed. At last, the concept of the normalized load–deflection curve was introduced to estimate the pile deflection during a preliminary stage of pile design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]