bantou
\bɑ̃.tu\
The verdict
“bantou” is uncommon French (frequency #73,745 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,745
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Relatif au groupe ethnique des Bantous, ensemble de peuples parlant quelque quatre cents langues apparentées dites bantoues, présents en Afrique, du Gabon aux Comores d’ouest en est et de la Républ...
Corpus desk
Index FR-bantou · bantou · French
bantou · rank #73,745 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #73,745
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH banania
Nearest frequency peer: banania (-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 « bantou »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- baladez
baladez
26,259 corpus weight
- Bamiléké
Bamiléké
26,258 corpus weight
- banania
banania
26,257 corpus weight
- bantou
bantou
26,256 corpus weight
- bapaume
bapaume
26,255 corpus weight
- barbot
barbot
26,254 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « bantou » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bantou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \bɑ̃.tu\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #73,745 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « bantou » en français
Rare enough to double-check
bantou is uncommon French at frequency #73,745 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \bɑ̃.tu\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for bantou, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is bantou, spelled B-A-N-T-O-U.
Definition
- 1Relatif au groupe ethnique des Bantous, ensemble de peuples parlant quelque quatre cents langues apparentées dites bantoues, présents en Afrique, du Gabon aux Comores d’ouest en est et de la République Centrafricaine à l’Afrique du Sud du nord au sud.
- 2Relatif à une langue des Bantous.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bantou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Dans les cours et les jardins de la ville européenne étaient dissimulées les « boyeries », c'est-à-dire les habitations sommaires dans lesquelles était logé le personnel domestique bantou : cuisiniers, « boys de maison », « lavadaires », […].
Cette désintégration, survenue au début du XIXᵉ siècle, avant l’arrivée des Européens, est représentative de la tendance permanente à la fissiparité des royaumes bantous.
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 "bantou", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).