à reculons
\a ʁə.ky.lɔ̃\
The verdict
“à reculons” 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) - En reculant ; en allant en arrière.
Corpus desk
Index FR-a-reculons · à reculons · French
à reculons · 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 reculons |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a ʁə.ky.lɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « à reculons » en français
Rare enough to double-check
à reculons is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a ʁə.ky.lɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for à reculons in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. 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.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is à reculons, spelled À- -R-E-C-U-L-O-N-S.
Definition
- 1En reculant ; en allant en arrière.
- 2En s’éloignant de sa bonne fin, de son terme, au lieu d’avancer.
- 3À contre-cœur ; sans en avoir envie.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how à reculons appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Et je voguais, lorsqu’à travers mes liens frêles Des noyés descendaient dormir, à reculons.
— Ce qu’il faisait ? Vous l’avez bien vu ! Il faisait demi-tour, saluait devant lui, alors qu’il n’y avait personne devant lui ! et se retirait « à reculons ». — À reculons ? — Et Moncharmin, derrière Richard, avait fait, lui aussi, demi-tour, c’est-à-dire qu’il avait accompli derrière Richard un rapide demi-cercle ; et lui aussi se retirait « à reculons…
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.