aller à vau-l’eau
\a.le a vo.l‿o\
The verdict
“aller à vau-l’eau” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aller au fil de l’eau ; suivre le courant.
Corpus desk
Index FR-aller-a-vau-l-eau · aller à vau-l’eau · French
aller à vau-l’eau · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | aller à vau-l’eau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \a.le a vo.l‿o\ |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « aller à vau-l’eau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
aller à vau-l’eau is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \a.le a vo.l‿o\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for aller à vau-l’eau, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is aller à vau-l’eau, spelled A-L-L-E-R- -À- -V-A-U---L-’-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Aller au fil de l’eau ; suivre le courant.
- 2Aller en se dégradant ; aller à sa perte ; péricliter ; aller sans contrôle ; partir à la dérive.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how aller à vau-l’eau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Elle se leva et vint s’asseoir près de moi ; les rames traînaient et avaient l’air vides ; la barque s’en allait à vau-l’eau et tournait lentement sur elle-même : la vieille valse des esquifs à la dérive.
Ni le lendemain, ni le surlendemain, la tristesse de M. Folantin ne se dissipa ; il se laissait aller à vau-l’eau, incapable de réagir contre ce spleen qui l’écrasait.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.