douceur
"douceur" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“douceur” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sweetness of manner: agreeableness, gentleness.
Corpus desk
Index EN-douceur · douceur · English
douceur · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
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 | douceur |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “douceur” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
douceur is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for douceur in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French douceur (“sweetness”), from Old French dolçor, dulcur, etc., from Latin dulcōr + -em, from dulcis (“sweet”). Naturalized in Middle English as douceoure, dousour but treated as a French loanword from the 17th century onward. Doublet of d… The correct English form is douceur, spelled D-O-U-C-E-U-R.
Definition
- 1Sweetness of manner: agreeableness, gentleness.
- 2Sweet speech: a compliment.
- 3A sweetener: a gift offered to sweeten another's attitude, a tip or bribe.
- 4A tax break provided as an inducement to sell valuable items (especially art) to public collections rather than on the open market.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how douceur appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
When Dangerfield put the little roll in his hand, Irons looked suspicious and frightened, and balanced it in his palm, as if he had thoughts of chucking it from him, as though it were literally a satanic douceur. But it is hard to part with money, and Irons, though he still looked cowed and unhappy, put the money into his breeches' pocket, and he made a q…
Etymology
Borrowed from French douceur (“sweetness”), from Old French dolçor, dulcur, etc., from Latin dulcōr + -em, from dulcis (“sweet”). Naturalized in Middle English as douceoure, dousour but treated as a French loanword from the 17th century onward. Doublet of dulcour.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What to do next
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Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.