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ressentiment

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

12 characters

Language

English

word origin

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "ressentiment", 12-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "ressentiment" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "ressentiment" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

ressentiment is aEnglishnoun. It means: Obsolete form of resentment. Pronounced /ɹəˌsɑ̃.tiˈmɑ̃/.

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Key facts for ressentiment
PropertyValue
Headwordressentiment
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ɹəˌsɑ̃.tiˈmɑ̃/
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

ressentiment is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for ressentiment is 12 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹəˌsɑ̃.tiˈmɑ̃/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for ressentiment in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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: From French ressentiment, from an archaic usage of the verb ressentir, via Old French sentir from Latin sentiō, sentīre (“to feel”); in the second sense a semantic loan from German Ressentiment. Doublet of resentiment and resentment. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is ressentiment, spelled R-E-S-S-E-N-T-I-M-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Obsolete form of resentment.
  2. 2
    a sense of resentment arising from deep-seated feelings of envy or hatred, leading the resentful one to blame it on an external agent.

Etymology

From French ressentiment, from an archaic usage of the verb ressentir, via Old French sentir from Latin sentiō, sentīre (“to feel”); in the second sense a semantic loan from German Ressentiment. Doublet of resentiment and resentment.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "ressentiment"?
"ressentiment" is spelled R-E-S-S-E-N-T-I-M-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is /ɹəˌsɑ̃.tiˈmɑ̃/.
What does "ressentiment" mean?
As a noun, "ressentiment" means: Obsolete form of resentment.
How do you pronounce "ressentiment"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ressentiment" is /ɹəˌsɑ̃.tiˈmɑ̃/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "ressentiment"?
From French ressentiment, from an archaic usage of the verb ressentir, via Old French sentir from Latin sentiō, sentīre (“to feel”); in the second sense a semantic loan from German Ressentiment. Doublet of resentiment and resentment. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.