aller à vau-l’eau
\a.le a vo.l‿o\
The verdict
“aller à vau-l’eau” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Aller au fil de l’eau ; suivre le courant.
| 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) |
Where “aller à vau-l’eau” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for aller à vau-l’eau is 17 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \a.le a vo.l‿o\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “aller à vau-l’eau”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is A-L-L-E-R- -À- -V-A-U---L-’-E-A-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \a.le a vo.l‿o\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.