abou
\ɐ.bˈoʊ̯\
The verdict
“abou” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #10,813 in French word frequency and used as a verb.
- #10,813
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Troisième personne du singulier du prétérit de abar.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | abou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ɐ.bˈoʊ̯\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #10,813 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “abou” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for abou is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɐ.bˈoʊ̯\. Corpus data places it at rank #10,813 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Troisième personne du singulier du prétérit de abar.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for abou, with forms such as "abbou", "abuo", and "aobu". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "au", "abu", "AOC", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, 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 abou, spelled A-B-O-U.
Definition
- 1Troisième personne du singulier du prétérit de abar.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: abbou,abuo,aobu,baou
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of abou - 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.
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 "abou"?
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Using “abou”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is A-B-O-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɐ.bˈoʊ̯\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “au” - see the side-by-side comparison. abou vs au
- 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.