blaireau

\blɛ.ʁo\

/\blɛ.ʁo\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“blaireau” has 10 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #25,907. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#25,907
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords
10
tracked misspellings
3
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Une des espèces de mammifères omnivores, bas sur pattes, au pelage noir, gris et blanchâtre, qui se creusent de profonds terriers.

Corpus desk

Index FR-blaireau · blaireau · French

blaireau · rank #25,907 · 10 variants · 3 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #25,907
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
  • VAR-MID 10 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH bitumineux

Nearest frequency peer: bitumineux (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « blaireau »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « blaireau » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

blaireau vs blairer
75% similar
blaireau vs blaireaux
89% similar
blaireau vs barreau
75% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for blaireau
PropertyValue
Headwordblaireau
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\blɛ.ʁo\
Letters8
Frequency rank#25,907
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « blaireau »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.blaireause place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « bitumineux » (#25,906), « Boileau » (#25,908), « bile » (#25,905). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « blaireau » est au #25,907. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 10 spelling variants around blaireau (IPA \blɛ.ʁo\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #25,907 among 4,251 “B” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for blaireau, with forms such as "balireau", "bblaireau", and "blaierau". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "blairer", "blaireaux", "barreau", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

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 blaireau, spelled B-L-A-I-R-E-A-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Une des espèces de mammifères omnivores, bas sur pattes, au pelage noir, gris et blanchâtre, qui se creusent de profonds terriers.
  2. 2
    Brosse en poils de cet animal dont se servent les peintres et les doreurs.
  3. 3
    Pinceau garni de ces poils dont on se sert, en se rasant, pour étaler et faire mousser le savon.
  4. 4
    Nez.
  5. 5
    Individu grossier et antipathique ; imbécile, idiot. ou belette

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how blaireau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Dès qu’il m’aperçut, Paul se leva et courut à ma rencontre pour m’annoncer que les chasseurs avaient « détérioré » un blaireau, c’est-à-dire qu’ils avaient passé la matinée à extraire cet animal de son terrier.
  2. Discret, extrêmement méfiant, le blaireau est un animal nocturne doté d’une vue moyenne, mais d’un très bon odorat et d’une ouïe très performante.

Synonyms

taissongrisard

This word in other languages

badger(English)tejón(Español)Dachs(Deutsch)texugo(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • balireau
  • bblaireau
  • blaierau
  • blairaeu
  • blaireua
  • blairreau
  • blarieau
  • bliareau
  • bllaireau
  • lbaireau

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of blaireau - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

balireau2bblaireau1blaierau2blairaeu2blaireua2blairreau1blarieau2bliareau2
Edit distance from "blaireau"

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

How do you spell "blaireau"?
"blaireau" is spelled B-L-A-I-R-E-A-U. The IPA pronunciation is \blɛ.ʁo\.
What does "blaireau" mean?
As a noun, "blaireau" means: Une des espèces de mammifères omnivores, bas sur pattes, au pelage noir, gris et blanchâtre, qui se creusent de profonds terriers.
What words are commonly confused with "blaireau"?
"blaireau" is commonly confused with "blairer", "blaireaux", "barreau". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "blaireau"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "blaireau" is \blɛ.ʁo\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "blaireau" come from?
"blaireau" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "blaireau", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Bourassa#25,913caméléon#25,919assimile#25,890assemble#25,889

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).

Bryant10 variantsAymeric10 variantschéris10 variantsArnault10 variants

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list