au premier abord
\o pʁə.mje.ʁ‿a.bɔʁ\
The verdict
“au premier abord” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lors du premier contact (avec quelqu’un).
Corpus desk
Index FR-au-premier-abord · au premier abord · French
au premier abord · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-7 7 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 premier abord |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \o pʁə.mje.ʁ‿a.bɔʁ\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « au premier abord » en français
Rare enough to double-check
au premier abord is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \o pʁə.mje.ʁ‿a.bɔʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
au premier abord has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, 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 premier abord, spelled A-U- -P-R-E-M-I-E-R- -A-B-O-R-D.
Definition
- 1Lors du premier contact (avec quelqu’un).
- 2Dès le premier instant ; sur le champ ; sans analyse poussée, superficiellement.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how au premier abord appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il peut sembler froid au premier abord, mais il est très généreux.
[…]; au premier abord, le lecteur pourra se sentir un peu dérouté, mais qu'il veuille bien se donner la peine, sans être obligé de se reporter au glossaire, de lire quelques lignes çà haute voix ; […].
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.