affaire

/\a.fɛʁ\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#526

in French word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

11

similar word pairs

affaire is aFrenchnoun. It means: Chose dont on doit s’occuper à faire. Pronounced \a.fɛʁ\. It ranks #526 in French word frequency. Often confused with affamé and affine.

Key facts for affaire
PropertyValue
Headwordaffaire
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\a.fɛʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#526
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs11
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of affaire in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for affaire is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \a.fɛʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #526 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for affaire, with forms such as "afafire", "afaire", and "affaier". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "affamé", "affine", "affilé", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is affaire, spelled A-F-F-A-I-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Chose dont on doit s’occuper à faire.
  2. 2
    Ce qui est le sujet de quelque occupation.
  3. 3
    Ce qui est sujet de quelques préoccupations.
  4. 4
    Engagement au front ; combat.
  5. 5
    Toute chose dont on a à discuter, à démêler avec quelqu’un dans le commerce de la vie.
  6. 6
    Convention ; marché ; traité ; transaction commerciale ; entreprise d’industrie ; spéculation financière.
  7. 7
    Cas traité par la justice.
  8. 8
    Est aussi un terme général que l’on substitue souvent dans le langage ordinaire à des termes propres et particuliers. Il s’emploie ainsi dans des significations très diverses et quelquefois dans des sens opposés qu’il est impossible d’indiquer tous.
  9. 9
    Effets personnels.
  10. 10
    Objet que l’on a du mal à définir ou à nommer ; patente, machin.
  11. 11
    Une certaine quantité.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: afafire,afaire,affaier,affairre,affarie,affiare,fafaire

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for affaire

Misspelling Variants of "affaire"

afafire7afaire6affaier7affairre8affarie7affiare7fafaire7
Misspelling Variants of "affaire"

Frequency rank: #526 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "affaire"?
"affaire" is spelled A-F-F-A-I-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \a.fɛʁ\.
What does "affaire" mean?
As a noun, "affaire" means: Chose dont on doit s’occuper à faire.
What words are commonly confused with "affaire"?
"affaire" is commonly confused with "affamé", "affine", "affilé". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "affaire"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "affaire" is \a.fɛʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "affaire" come from?
"affaire" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter A in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.