madeleine
/ˈmædələn/noun
madeleine is spelled M-A-D-E-L-E-I-N-E: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 2.6 times per million words in written English, the 16,896th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Madeleine, the name). As a noun, madeleine means “A French type of small gateau or sponge cake, often shaped like an elongated scallop shell” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of madeleine is madeleines.
How many letters and syllables are in madeleine?
| Letters | 9: M-A-D-E-L-E-I-N-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.6 times per million words; the 16,896th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is madeleine?
Madeleine appears 2.6 times per million words in written English, the 16,896th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Madeleine, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce madeleine?
- UK /ˈmad(ə)lɪn/
- UK /ˈmad(ə)lɛn/
- US /ˈmædələn/
Madeleine 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-madeleine.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of madeleine
- madeleines plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does madeleine mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A French type of small gateau or sponge cake, often shaped like an elongated scallop shell.
- 2
Something which brings back a memory; a source of nostalgia or evocative memories.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Madeleine in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense small gateau in the shape of a scallop shell:
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 madeleine come from?
Unadapted borrowing from French madeleine, from earlier gâteau à la Madeleine, after the given name Madeleine (“Magdalene”), of uncertain reference: attributed in some sources to a 19th-century pastry cook Madeleine Paulmier, whose existence is now considered dubious. In sense 2, used with reference to the cake's function in the extract below, taken from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).