contretemps
/ˈkɑːn.tɹə.tɑ̃/noun
contretemps is a noun meaning “An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-O-N-T-R-E-T-E-M-P-S and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 18 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does contretemps mean?
noun
- 1
An unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event.
- 2
An ill-timed pass.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce contretemps?
- UK /ˈkɒn.tɹə.tɑ̃ŋ/
- US /ˈkɑːn.tɹə.tɑ̃/
Contretemps has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-contretemps.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is contretemps?
Contretemps appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 127,184th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Contretemps in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense an unforeseen or embarrassing event:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | contretemps |
| German | unglücklicher Zufall, Unannehmlichkeit, Zwischenfall, Widrigkeit |
| Portuguese | contratempo |
| Spanish | contratiempo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does contretemps come from?
Borrowed from French contretemps.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).