alas
The verdict
“alas” is uncommon French (frequency #99,841 among 6,727 “A” headwords), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #99,841
- frequency rank, French
- 6,727
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Hélas.
Corpus desk
Index FR-alas · alas · French
alas · rank #99,841 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #99,841
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,727
- PHOTO-FINISH aimantés
Nearest frequency peer: aimantés (-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 « alas »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- affleurer
affleurer
164 corpus weight
- afflictions
afflictions
163 corpus weight
- aimantés
aimantés
161 corpus weight
- alas
alas
160 corpus weight
- Aldébaran
Aldébaran
158 corpus weight
- alleux
alleux
156 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « alas » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alas |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #99,841 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « alas » en français
Rare enough to double-check
alas is uncommon French at frequency #99,841 among 6,727 “A” headwords, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Hélas.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for alas, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is alas, spelled A-L-A-S.
Definition
- 1Hélas.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how alas appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Non ! le pauvre monde est trop malheureux ! Alas ! mon Dieu ! alas ! faut-il ! alas ! Jésus ! »
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "alas", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).