Bérézina
\be.ʁe.zi.na\
The verdict
“Bérézina” is uncommon French (frequency #68,101 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #68,101
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Affluent du Dniepr en Biélorussie long d’environ 613 km, qui a donné son nom à une célèbre bataille de la retraite de Russie, qui a marqué le début de la défaite de Napoléon Bonaparte.
Corpus desk
Index FR-berezina · Bérézina · French
Bérézina · rank #68,101 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #68,101
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH béatitudes
Nearest frequency peer: béatitudes (-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 « Bérézina »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bukkake
bukkake
31,903 corpus weight
- bâillonner
bâillonner
31,902 corpus weight
- béatitudes
béatitudes
31,901 corpus weight
- Bérézina
Bérézina
31,900 corpus weight
- cacherai
cacherai
31,898 corpus weight
- cadastrale
cadastrale
31,897 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « Bérézina » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Bérézina |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \be.ʁe.zi.na\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #68,101 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « Bérézina » en français
Rare enough to double-check
Bérézina is uncommon French at frequency #68,101 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as aproper noun, transcribed \be.ʁe.zi.na\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Bérézina doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is Bérézina, spelled B-É-R-É-Z-I-N-A.
Definition
- 1Affluent du Dniepr en Biélorussie long d’environ 613 km, qui a donné son nom à une célèbre bataille de la retraite de Russie, qui a marqué le début de la défaite de Napoléon Bonaparte.
- 2Déroute, échec cuisant, catastrophe totale.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Bérézina appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
En arrivant à Studzianka, petit village au-dessus de la Bérézina, nous trouvâmes des granges, des cabanes à démolir, des pommes de terre enterrées et quelques betteraves.
Cependant on continua de marcher vers le Dnieper ; et comme on y trouva pas les Russes, on se crut presque sauvé ; mais ils étaient allés attendre les Français sur la Bérézina.
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 "Bérézina", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).