branle-bas
\bʁɑ̃l.bɑ\
The verdict
“branle-bas” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Action de détendre tous les branles ou hamacs d’entre les ponts, de les mettre dans les filets de bastingage et de dégager les batteries pour se disposer au combat.
Corpus desk
Index FR-branle-bas · branle-bas · French
branle-bas · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | branle-bas |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \bʁɑ̃l.bɑ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « branle-bas » en français
Rare enough to double-check
branle-bas is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \bʁɑ̃l.bɑ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
branle-bas doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 branle-bas, spelled B-R-A-N-L-E---B-A-S.
Definition
- 1Action de détendre tous les branles ou hamacs d’entre les ponts, de les mettre dans les filets de bastingage et de dégager les batteries pour se disposer au combat.
- 2Alerte et préparation immédiate au combat.
- 3Réveil de l’équipage.
- 4Agitation générale, généralement constituée de préparatifs, en raison d’un évènement subit, important ou potentiellement dangereux.
- 5Agitation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how branle-bas appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Faire branle-bas.
Branle-bas général.
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.