au pire
\o piʁ\
The verdict
“au pire” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Dans le cas le moins favorable.
Corpus desk
Index FR-au-pire · au pire · French
au pire · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 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 | au pire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \o piʁ\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « au pire » en français
Rare enough to double-check
au pire is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \o piʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Dans le cas le moins favorable.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for au pire, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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 au pire, spelled A-U- -P-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Dans le cas le moins favorable.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how au pire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ils ne m’aiment pas. Ils ne m’ont jamais aimée. Au mieux, ils m’ignorent. Au pire, ils me molestent quand ils ont un peu trop bu l’arack.
Les cheveux n'avaient pas été touchés, au pire juste emmêlés.
Synonyms
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.