bactérien

\bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\

/\bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\/ adj

The verdict

“bactérien” is uncommon French (frequency #58,435 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#58,435
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Relatif aux bactéries.

Corpus desk

Index FR-bacterien · bactérien · French

bactérien · rank #58,435 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #58,435
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH babar

Nearest frequency peer: babar (-1 rank slots)

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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « bactérien »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « bactérien » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for bactérien
PropertyValue
Headwordbactérien
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\
Letters9
Frequency rank#58,435
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « bactérien » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).bactérientombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « babar » (#58,434), « Bahrain » (#58,437), « bais » (#58,438). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « bactérien » est au #58,435. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

bactérien is uncommon French at frequency #58,435 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Relatif aux bactéries.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for bactérien, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is bactérien, spelled B-A-C-T-É-R-I-E-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Relatif aux bactéries.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how bactérien appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Comment surveiller, diagnostiquer et refréner la fièvre Q dans son élevage ? La lutte contre cette zoonose bactérienne très répandue dans les troupeaux de ruminants est encore floue.
  2. La numération bactérienne est l'opération de comptage des micro-organismes dans un milieu de culture ou le résultat de cette opération.

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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "bactérien"?
"bactérien" is spelled B-A-C-T-É-R-I-E-N. The IPA pronunciation is \bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\.
What does "bactérien" mean?
As an adjective, "bactérien" means: Relatif aux bactéries.
How do you pronounce "bactérien"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "bactérien" is \bak.te.ʁjɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "bactérien" come from?
"bactérien" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bactérien", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list