à volonté
\a vɔ.lɔ̃.te\
The verdict
“à volonté” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Quand on veut ; comme on veut ; autant qu’on veut.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | à volonté |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a vɔ.lɔ̃.te\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “à volonté” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
à volonté is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a vɔ.lɔ̃.te\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
à volonté doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 volonté, spelled À- -V-O-L-O-N-T-É.
Definition
- 1Quand on veut ; comme on veut ; autant qu’on veut.
- 2Quand celui à qui il est dû voudra être payé, concernant le paiement d'un effet de commerce.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “à volonté”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is À- -V-O-L-O-N-T-É - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \a vɔ.lɔ̃.te\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.