balafre
\ba.lafʁ\
The verdict
“balafre” is uncommon French (frequency #71,271 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #71,271
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Longue entaille, plaie faite particulièrement au visage.
Corpus desk
Index FR-balafre · balafre · French
balafre · rank #71,271 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #71,271
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH baillis
Nearest frequency peer: baillis (-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 « balafre »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- baggy
baggy
28,733 corpus weight
- baignades
baignades
28,732 corpus weight
- baillis
baillis
28,731 corpus weight
- balafre
balafre
28,730 corpus weight
- balayeur
balayeur
28,729 corpus weight
- bandar
bandar
28,727 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « balafre » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | balafre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ba.lafʁ\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #71,271 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « balafre » en français
Rare enough to double-check
balafre is uncommon French at frequency #71,271 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ba.lafʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for balafre in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is balafre, spelled B-A-L-A-F-R-E.
Definition
- 1Longue entaille, plaie faite particulièrement au visage.
- 2Cicatrice qui reste quand la blessure est guérie.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how balafre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Grande balafre.
Quelques-uns même qui s’étaient levés dès avant l’aube, n’ayant pas vu clair à se faire la barbe, avaient des balafres en diagonale sous le nez.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "balafre", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).