bantu
\bɑ̃.tu\
The verdict
“bantu” is uncommon French (frequency #78,164 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #78,164
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Relatif aux Bantous.
Corpus desk
Index FR-bantu · bantu · French
bantu · rank #78,164 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #78,164
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH Baloutchistan
Nearest frequency peer: Baloutchistan (-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 « bantu »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Baloutchist…
Baloutchistan
21,838 corpus weight
- bantu
bantu
21,837 corpus weight
- baromètres
baromètres
21,836 corpus weight
- bascules
bascules
21,835 corpus weight
- battantes
battantes
21,834 corpus weight
- bayes
bayes
21,833 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « bantu » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bantu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \bɑ̃.tu\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #78,164 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « bantu » en français
Rare enough to double-check
bantu is uncommon French at frequency #78,164 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 bantu, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is bantu, spelled B-A-N-T-U.
Definition
- 1Relatif aux Bantous.
- 2Relatif à la famille de langues des Bantous.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bantu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce schéma général s’applique à un grand nombre de groupes ethniques d’Afrique australe, mais on ne le retrouve pas dans les sociétés bantu matrilinéaires d’Afrique centrale, qui possédaient peu ou pas de bétail, ni chez les éleveurs non bantuphones d’Afrique de l’Est.
Un mois avant sa mort, il se réjouissait d’aller, après une longue attente, rejoindre l’Afrique du Sud où les organisateurs d’un congrès linguistique entendaient, comme signe de leur indépendance nouvelle, honorer en lui le grand spécialiste des langues bantu.
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 "bantu", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).