abbé

\a.be\

/\a.be\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“abbé” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #3,973) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#3,973
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords
4
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Moine supérieur d’une abbaye.

Corpus desk

Index FR-abbe · abbé · French

abbé · rank #3,973 · 4 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #3,973
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 4 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH épreuves

Nearest frequency peer: épreuves (-1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « abbé »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « abbé » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

abbé vs ae
25% similar
abbé vs âge
0% similar
abbé vs âme
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for abbé
PropertyValue
Headwordabbé
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\a.be\
Letters4
Frequency rank#3,973
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « abbé »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).abbése place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « épreuves » (#3,972), « acier » (#3,974), « voulaient » (#3,971). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « abbé » est au #3,973. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for abbé is neighbouring look-alikes ("ae", "âge", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \a.be\. Frequency #3,973 among 6,727 “A” headwords. 5 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for abbé, with forms such as "abbe", "abé", and "abéb". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ae", "âge", "âme", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is abbé, spelled A-B-B-É.

Definition

  1. 1
    Moine supérieur d’une abbaye.
  2. 2
    Celui qui porte le costume ecclésiastique et remplit ou se prépare à remplir les fonctions sacerdotales.
  3. 3
    Tout homme qui portait l’habit ecclésiastique, sans remplir les fonctions sacerdotales.
  4. 4
    Président d’une confrérie agricole.
  5. 5
    Titre donné à un prêtre séculier dans l’Église catholique.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how abbé appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les anciens moines donnèrent ce nom au supérieur qu’ils élisaient. L’abbé était leur père spirituel. L’abbé spirituel était un pauvre à la tête de plusieurs autres pauvres : mais les pauvres pères spirituels ont eu depuis deux cents, quatre cents mille livres de rente […]
  2. […], Rinaldi expliquait si gaiement comme quoi, son père le destinant à la moinaille, on l'avait enfermé en un couvent d'où il s'était enfui, un beau jour, avec la caisse de l’économe, la nièce de l’abbé et une douzaine de mots latins dans la cervelle pour tout bagage, […].

Synonyms

supérieurcuréprêtre

This word in other languages

abbot(English)abad(Español)Abt(Deutsch)sacerdote(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • abbe
  • abé
  • abéb
  • babé

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of abbé - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

abbe1abé1abéb2babé2
Edit distance from "abbé"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "abbé"?
"abbé" is spelled A-B-B-É. The IPA pronunciation is \a.be\.
What does "abbé" mean?
As a noun, "abbé" means: Moine supérieur d’une abbaye.
What words are commonly confused with "abbé"?
"abbé" is commonly confused with "ae", "âge", "âme". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "abbé"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "abbé" is \a.be\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "abbé" come from?
"abbé" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "abbé", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

sage#3,960game#3,997mike#4,004lion#3,935

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list