barbacane
\baʁ.ba.kan\
The verdict
“barbacane” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ouvrage avancé, percé de meurtrières et destiné à renforcer les défenses d'une porte ou d'un passage.
Corpus desk
Index FR-barbacane · barbacane · French
barbacane · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | barbacane |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \baʁ.ba.kan\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « barbacane » en français
Rare enough to double-check
barbacane is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \baʁ.ba.kan\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for barbacane in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is barbacane, spelled B-A-R-B-A-C-A-N-E.
Definition
- 1Ouvrage avancé, percé de meurtrières et destiné à renforcer les défenses d'une porte ou d'un passage.
- 2Meurtrière ou fenêtre étroite.
- 3Ouverture pratiquée en bas d'un mur de soutènement ou dans une terrasse pour faciliter l'écoulement des eaux.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how barbacane appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Pendant ce temps, Front-de-Bœuf le conduisait vers la poterne ; ils traversèrent le pont sur une seule planche, et gagnèrent une petite barbacane ou défense extérieure qui communiquait avec la campagne par une porte bien fortifiée.
Les assiégés, de leur côté, dans l’enceinte de cette barbacane, élèvent une pierrière turque qui bat le mangonneau.
Synonyms
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.