à coup sûr
\a ku syʁ\
The verdict
“à coup sûr” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Immanquablement ; sûrement ; infailliblement ; avec certitude.
Corpus desk
Index FR-a-coup-sur · à coup sûr · French
à coup sûr · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "À" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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 | à coup sûr |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a ku syʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « à coup sûr » en français
Rare enough to double-check
à coup sûr is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a ku syʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Immanquablement ; sûrement ; infailliblement ; avec certitude.".
No misspelling variants are generated for à coup sûr in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is à coup sûr, spelled À- -C-O-U-P- -S-Û-R.
Definition
- 1Immanquablement ; sûrement ; infailliblement ; avec certitude.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how à coup sûr appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Et sais-tu ce que je me disais à l’instant, en t'apercevant, si gracieuse, qui cueillais les fleurs parmi la rosée du matin? Que les jeunes Parisiennes, et même que les houris qui nous attendent au paradis sont, à coup sûr, moins belles que toi ….
À coup sûr, l'essence de la laïcité, mis à part la séparation de la religion et de l'État, est l'acceptation de la proposition selon laquelle il n'y a pas de finalité des formes, pas de possession exclusive de la vérité absolue et indivisible.
Synonyms
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.