à vrai dire
\a vʁɛ diʁ\
The verdict
“à vrai dire” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pour parler honnêtement ; pour dire la vérité.
Corpus desk
Index FR-a-vrai-dire · à vrai dire · French
à vrai dire · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 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 vrai dire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a vʁɛ diʁ\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « à vrai dire » en français
Rare enough to double-check
à vrai dire is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a vʁɛ diʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Pour parler honnêtement ; pour dire la vérité.".
Zero misspellings are on record for à vrai dire in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 vrai dire, spelled À- -V-R-A-I- -D-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Pour parler honnêtement ; pour dire la vérité.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how à vrai dire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce mariage, à vrai dire, était pour lui un mariage de raison, en ce sens qu'il le sauvait d'une ruine totale, mais il ne s'était pas fiancé à contre-cœur, car sa fiancée lui plaisait fort.
À bien vrai dire ce n'est pas ce qui me déterminerait.
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.