arête

/\a.ʁɛt\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#17,875

in French word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

arête is aFrenchnoun. It means: Os long, mince et pointu qui se trouve dans la chair de certains poissons. Pronounced \a.ʁɛt\. Often confused with Art and arts.

Key facts for arête
PropertyValue
Headwordarête
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\a.ʁɛt\
Letters5
Frequency rank#17,875
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of arête in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for arête is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \a.ʁɛt\. Corpus data places it at rank #17,875 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for arête, with forms such as "arete", "arrête", and "artêe". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Art", "arts", "armé", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is arête, spelled A-R-Ê-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Os long, mince et pointu qui se trouve dans la chair de certains poissons.
  2. 2
    Squelette entier du poisson.
  3. 3
    Barbes qui accompagnent l’épi de certaines graminées, telles que l’orge, le seigle, etc., et en général tout filet sec, grêle et plus ou moins raide qui ressemble aux barbes des graminées. Fil raide attaché au sommet ou sur le dos d’un organe d’une plante.
  4. 4
    Angle saillant formé par la rencontre et la jonction de deux surfaces d’une pierre, d’une pièce de bois ou de toute autre matière.
  5. 5
    Ligne formée par la réunion de deux surfaces inclinées l’une sur l’autre.
  6. 6
    Ligne courbe ou brisée qui sépare les deux versants d’une chaîne de montagnes.
  7. 7
    Arc d’un graphe non orienté.
  8. 8
    Dans un arbre binaire, représentation d’un lien, sous forme de droite, entre deux sommets.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: arete,arrête,artêe,arêet,arêtte,aêrte,raête

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for arête

Misspelling Variants of "arête"

arete5arrête6artêe5arêet5arêtte6aêrte5raête5
Misspelling Variants of "arête"

Frequency rank: #17,875 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "arête"?
"arête" is spelled A-R-Ê-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \a.ʁɛt\.
What does "arête" mean?
As a noun, "arête" means: Os long, mince et pointu qui se trouve dans la chair de certains poissons.
What words are commonly confused with "arête"?
"arête" is commonly confused with "Art", "arts", "armé". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "arête"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "arête" is \a.ʁɛt\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "arête" come from?
"arête" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter A in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.