bitter
\bi.tɛʁ\
The verdict
“bitter” is uncommon French (frequency #64,968 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #64,968
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Liqueur apéritive fabriquée à partir de l’infusion de plantes amères.
Corpus desk
Index FR-bitter · bitter · French
bitter · rank #64,968 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #64,968
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH biscottes
Nearest frequency peer: biscottes (-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 « bitter »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bips
bips
35,036 corpus weight
- biscotte
biscotte
35,035 corpus weight
- biscottes
biscottes
35,034 corpus weight
- bitter
bitter
35,033 corpus weight
- Blandin
Blandin
35,032 corpus weight
- bleutée
bleutée
35,030 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « bitter » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bitter |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bi.tɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #64,968 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « bitter » en français
Rare enough to double-check
bitter is uncommon French at frequency #64,968 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \bi.tɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Liqueur apéritive fabriquée à partir de l’infusion de plantes amères.".
bitter doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is bitter, spelled B-I-T-T-E-R.
Definition
- 1Liqueur apéritive fabriquée à partir de l’infusion de plantes amères.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bitter appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce petit monde bien sage était servi par un unique garçon, à moitié impotent, à la fois obséquieux et quinteux, solennel et familier. Dans cette maison, on buvait d'authentiques liqueurs et notamment du véritable bitter hollandais, que Huysmans aimait, et qui me ravageait l'estomac.
L’apéritif est une des grosses préoccupations du faisan, […]. Tout en dégustant des vermouths, des bitters, des pernods père et fils, on échange des tuyaux et chacun s’efforce de tirer les vers du nez de son voisin.
Synonyms
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 "bitter", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).