au contraire
\o kɔ̃.tʁɛʁ\
The verdict
“au contraire” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tout autrement ; d’une manière opposée.
Corpus desk
Index FR-au-contraire · au contraire · French
au contraire · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | au contraire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \o kɔ̃.tʁɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « au contraire » en français
Rare enough to double-check
au contraire is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \o kɔ̃.tʁɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Tout autrement ; d’une manière opposée.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for au contraire, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is au contraire, spelled A-U- -C-O-N-T-R-A-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Tout autrement ; d’une manière opposée.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how au contraire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Les poils de chèvre diffèrent de la laine du mouton par des cellules de surface externe qui sont un peu moins ou peu saillantes et par des stries de leur substance propre qui, au contraire, sont très apparentes.
Les coups ne m'ont jamais rien fait. Au contraire, je leur dois de m'être créé tout jeune une philosophie qui me permet aujourd'hui d'apprécier de suite et sans arrière-pensée les bons et les mauvais moments.
Antonyms
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.