acanthe

\a.kɑ̃t\

/\a.kɑ̃t\/ noun

The verdict

“acanthe” is uncommon French (frequency #67,248 among 6,727 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#67,248
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Plante du genre Acanthus, de la famille des Acanthaceae, remarquable par ses belles feuilles découpées, dont l’extrémité se recourbe naturellement.

Corpus desk

Index FR-acanthe · acanthe · French

acanthe · rank #67,248 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #67,248
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH absorbante

Nearest frequency peer: absorbante (-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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « acanthe »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « acanthe » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for acanthe
PropertyValue
Headwordacanthe
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\a.kɑ̃t\
Letters7
Frequency rank#67,248
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « acanthe » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).acanthetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « absorbante » (#67,247), « acariâtre » (#67,249), « abjectes » (#67,246). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « acanthe » est au #67,248. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

acanthe is uncommon French at frequency #67,248 among 6,727 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \a.kɑ̃t\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No generated misspelling entries exist for acanthe in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

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 acanthe, spelled A-C-A-N-T-H-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Plante du genre Acanthus, de la famille des Acanthaceae, remarquable par ses belles feuilles découpées, dont l’extrémité se recourbe naturellement.
  2. 2
    Ornement imité de la feuille d’acanthe.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. La feuille d’acanthe a servi de modèle pour l’ornement du chapiteau corinthien.
  2. acanthe Arts. — L’histoire rapporte que la nourrice d’une pauvre jeune fille, morte quelques jours avant son mariage, avait placé respectueusement sur sa tombe un petit panier qui contenait quelques fleurs et le voile qui devait parer la jeune fille au jour de ses noces; une large tuile couvrait le panier; une plante d’acanthe, croissant près de là, entou…

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); 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 "acanthe"?
"acanthe" is spelled A-C-A-N-T-H-E. The IPA pronunciation is \a.kɑ̃t\.
What does "acanthe" mean?
As a noun, "acanthe" means: Plante du genre Acanthus, de la famille des Acanthaceae, remarquable par ses belles feuilles découpées, dont l’extrémité se recourbe naturellement.
How do you pronounce "acanthe"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "acanthe" is \a.kɑ̃t\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "acanthe" come from?
"acanthe" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "acanthe", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list