au contraire
[oː kõˈtʁɛːɐ̯]
The verdict
“au contraire” is uncommon German (outside the top frequency list), classed as a phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency German
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - im Gegenteil
Corpus desk
Index DE-au-contraire · au contraire · German
au contraire · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" 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 | au contraire |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Phrase |
| IPA | [oː kõˈtʁɛːɐ̯] |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Langschwanz-Rang von „au contraire“ im Deutschen
Rare enough to double-check
au contraire is uncommon German outside the top frequency list, classed as aphrase, transcribed [oː kõˈtʁɛːɐ̯]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "im Gegenteil".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for au contraire, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is au contraire, spelled A-U- -C-O-N-T-R-A-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1im Gegenteil
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how au contraire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
„Man habe es doch immer schon gewusst, dass Haider so gefährlich nicht sei, sagen die einen. Au contraire! die anderen: Nur die EU-Sanktionen gegen Österreichs Regierung hätten Schlimmeres verhindert, …“
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.