après coup
\a.pʁɛ ku\
The verdict
“après coup” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Après qu’un événement est arrivé ou qu’une chose est faite.
Corpus desk
Index FR-apres-coup · après coup · French
après coup · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | après coup |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \a.pʁɛ ku\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « après coup » en français
Rare enough to double-check
après coup is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \a.pʁɛ ku\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for après coup, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is après coup, spelled A-P-R-È-S- -C-O-U-P.
Definition
- 1Après qu’un événement est arrivé ou qu’une chose est faite.
- 2Postérieurement ; ultérieurement.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how après coup appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
C’est un peu après coup que j’ai compris que Sylvain Wiltord venait de marquer un but.
Ce sont des récits fantaisistes de faits mal observés, accompagnés d’explications faites après coup.
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.