benêt
\bə.nɛ\
The verdict
“benêt” is uncommon French (frequency #56,445 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #56,445
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est niais, sot.
Corpus desk
Index FR-benet · benêt · French
benêt · rank #56,445 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #56,445
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH beaucoups
Nearest frequency peer: beaucoups (-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 « benêt »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bcbg
bcbg
43,559 corpus weight
- Beatriz
Beatriz
43,558 corpus weight
- beaucoups
beaucoups
43,557 corpus weight
- benêt
benêt
43,556 corpus weight
- biodynamie
biodynamie
43,554 corpus weight
- Blouin
Blouin
43,553 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « benêt » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | benêt |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \bə.nɛ\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #56,445 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « benêt » en français
Rare enough to double-check
benêt is uncommon French at frequency #56,445 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \bə.nɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui est niais, sot.".
No misspelling variants are generated for benêt in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is benêt, spelled B-E-N-Ê-T.
Definition
- 1Qui est niais, sot.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how benêt appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Voilà un homme bien benêt.
Le chapitre XX, qui raconte le mariage, est écrit sur le mode du grotesque, un grotesque grinçant, qui ménage un contraste perpétuel entre l’ahurissement angoissé des deux époux et la satisfaction benête de leur entourage.
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 "benêt", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).