alose

\a.loz\

/\a.loz\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“alose” is uncommon French (frequency #98,718 among 6,727 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#98,718
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Poisson de mer de la famille des clupéidés, qui remonte frayer au printemps dans les rivières et dont la chair est très délicate.

Corpus desk

Index FR-alose · alose · French

alose · rank #98,718 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #98,718
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH altro

Nearest frequency peer: altro (+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 « alose »

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 « alose » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for alose
PropertyValue
Headwordalose
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\a.loz\
Letters5
Frequency rank#98,718
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « alose » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.alosetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « altro » (#98,719), « algèbres » (#98,716), « alémaniques » (#98,720). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « alose » est au #98,718. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

alose is uncommon French at frequency #98,718 among 6,727 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \a.loz\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for alose, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

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 alose, spelled A-L-O-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Poisson de mer de la famille des clupéidés, qui remonte frayer au printemps dans les rivières et dont la chair est très délicate.
  2. 2
    Variante de grande alose (poisson).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Les poissons qu'on trouve dans la Charente sont la tanche, la truite, l’anguille, la plie, le barbeau, le chabot, l’âton, le dard, la brème, le goujon, l’ablette et l’écrevisse. Ceux qui remontent de la mer sont la lamproie, le meuil, qui s'arrêtent le plus ordinairement à Jarnac; la gathe, et rarement l’alose.
  2. On pêche fréquemment dans le Rhône le barbeau et le goujon, quelquefois la truite ordinaire, la truite saumonée et même le saumon, le plus souvent la carpe, le brochet et les deux espèces d'anguilles de nos marais , que distinguent fort bien nos pêcheurs et mieux encore nos gourmets. A certaines époques, on y prend des esturgeons et des aloses en grande q…

This word in other languages

shad(English)sábalo(Español)Maifisch(Deutsch)

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 "alose"?
"alose" is spelled A-L-O-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is \a.loz\.
What does "alose" mean?
As a noun, "alose" means: Poisson de mer de la famille des clupéidés, qui remonte frayer au printemps dans les rivières et dont la chair est très délicate.
How do you pronounce "alose"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "alose" is \a.loz\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "alose" come from?
"alose" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "alose", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

altro#98,719amusa#98,727acute#98,697attar#98,759

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list