bête comme chou
\bɛt kɔm ʃu\
The verdict
“bête comme chou” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - D’une extrême simplicité.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bête comme chou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \bɛt kɔm ʃu\ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bête comme chou” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for bête comme chou is 15 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \bɛt kɔm ʃu\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "D’une extrême simplicité.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for bête comme chou in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 bête comme chou, spelled B-Ê-T-E- -C-O-M-M-E- -C-H-O-U.
Definition
- 1D’une extrême simplicité.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “bête comme chou”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-Ê-T-E- -C-O-M-M-E- -C-H-O-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \bɛt kɔm ʃu\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.