à l’ancienne
\a l‿ɑ̃.sjɛn\
The verdict
“à l’ancienne” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Comme jadis.
Corpus desk
Index FR-a-l-ancienne · à l’ancienne · French
à l’ancienne · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 l’ancienne |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a l‿ɑ̃.sjɛn\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « à l’ancienne » en français
Rare enough to double-check
à l’ancienne is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a l‿ɑ̃.sjɛn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for à l’ancienne, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is à l’ancienne, spelled À- -L-’-A-N-C-I-E-N-N-E.
Definition
- 1Comme jadis.
- 2Qualifie un produit fabriqué selon les mêmes procédés qu’on utilisait autrefois, ou que l’on répute comme tels.
- 3Se dit de plats avec une garniture de petits ognons et de champignons et, éventuellement, une sauce au vin.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how à l’ancienne appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La drague à l'ancienne, c'est fini.
Je me souviens qu’elle était habillée à l’ancienne, tout en noir. Elle portait la crépine.
Synonyms
Antonyms
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.