av. n. è.
\a.vɑ̃.nɔtʁ.ɛʁ\
The verdict
“av. n. è.” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Avant notre ère. — Note d’usage : Utilisé pour nommer les années, les siècles et les millénaires avant l’an 0 du calendrier julien (année supposée de la naissance de Jésus-Christ, évaluée au VIᵉ si...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | av. n. è. |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \a.vɑ̃.nɔtʁ.ɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “av. n. è.” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for av. n. è. is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \a.vɑ̃.nɔtʁ.ɛʁ\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Avant notre ère. — Note d’usage : Utilisé pour nommer les années, les siècles et les millénaires avant l’an 0 du calendrier julien (année supposée de la naissance de Jésus-Christ, évaluée au VIᵉ si...".
av. n. è. doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is av. n. è., spelled A-V-.- -N-.- -È-..
Definition
- 1Avant notre ère. — Note d’usage : Utilisé pour nommer les années, les siècles et les millénaires avant l’an 0 du calendrier julien (année supposée de la naissance de Jésus-Christ, évaluée au VIᵉ siècle). L’an 1 av. n. è. est précédé de l’an 2 av. n. è. et suivi de l’an 1 de notre ère.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “av. n. è.”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is A-V-.- -N-.- -È-. - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \a.vɑ̃.nɔtʁ.ɛʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.