risqué
/ˈɹɪskeɪ/
"risque" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“risqué” is an uncommon English word, ranked #57,683 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #57,683
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | risqué |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɹɪskeɪ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #57,683 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “risqué” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for risqué is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹɪskeɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #57,683 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for risqué, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French risqué (“risky”), an adjective use of the past participle of risquer (“to put at risk; to risk”), from risque (“risk”, noun) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Risque is derived from Old Italian risco (“risk”… The correct English form is risqué, spelled R-I-S-Q-U-É.
Definition
- 1Slightly sexually suggestive; bordering on indelicate.
Etymology
Borrowed from French risqué (“risky”), an adjective use of the past participle of risquer (“to put at risk; to risk”), from risque (“risk”, noun) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Risque is derived from Old Italian risco (“risk”) (modern Italian rischio), possibly a deverbal from resecare or from Vulgar Latin *resecum, both from Latin resecō (“to cut loose or off, etc.”), from re- (intensifying prefix) + secō (“to cut; to cut off”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut; to cut off, sever”)).
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “risqué”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-I-S-Q-U-É - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɹɪskeɪ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.