atavique
\a.ta.vik\
The verdict
“atavique” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui se transmet par atavisme ; relatif à l’atavisme.
Corpus desk
Index FR-atavique · atavique · French
atavique · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | atavique |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \a.ta.vik\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « atavique » en français
Rare enough to double-check
atavique is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \a.ta.vik\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for atavique, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
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. The correct French form is atavique, spelled A-T-A-V-I-Q-U-E.
Definition
- 1Qui se transmet par atavisme ; relatif à l’atavisme.
- 2Ancestral.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how atavique appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Des fautes comme les miennes, que je ne tente pas d’expliquer par l’influence des fatalités ataviques, et par les pernicieux effets d’une éducation si contraire à ma nature, ont besoin d’une expiation terrible, et cette expiation que j’ai choisie, elle est dans la confession publique de ma vie.
Nous autres du corps enseignant, sommes plus sensibles que quiconque à la conservation des qualités ataviques, qui ont fait la grandeur de la France.
Synonyms
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.