bonsaï
\bɔn.zaj\
The verdict
“bonsaï” is uncommon French (frequency #63,566 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,566
- frequency rank, French
- 4,251
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Arbre cultivé en pot auquel des soins particuliers sont apportés en vue de lui conserver des proportions considérablement réduites par rapport à celles qui résulteraient d’une croissance naturelle.
Corpus desk
Index FR-bonsai · bonsaï · French
bonsaï · rank #63,566 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,566
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,251
- PHOTO-FINISH Bontemps
Nearest frequency peer: Bontemps (+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 « bonsaï »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bolivienne
bolivienne
36,438 corpus weight
- Bologna
Bologna
36,437 corpus weight
- bonsaï
bonsaï
36,435 corpus weight
- Bontemps
Bontemps
36,434 corpus weight
- Borromée
Borromée
36,433 corpus weight
- bosque
bosque
36,431 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « bonsaï » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bonsaï |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bɔn.zaj\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #63,566 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « bonsaï » en français
Rare enough to double-check
bonsaï is uncommon French at frequency #63,566 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \bɔn.zaj\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
bonsaï has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is bonsaï, spelled B-O-N-S-A-Ï.
Definition
- 1Arbre cultivé en pot auquel des soins particuliers sont apportés en vue de lui conserver des proportions considérablement réduites par rapport à celles qui résulteraient d’une croissance naturelle.
- 2Art et pratique visant à faire pousser un bonsaï.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how bonsaï appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La culture du bonsaï, dont la beauté et la valeur artistique sont louées par de nombreux amateurs aux quatre coins du monde, fait partie des arts traditionnels du Japon.
Cultiver des bonsaïs signifie bien plus que s’occuper d’arbres miniatures.
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); 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 "bonsaï", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).