brelan

\bʁə.lɑ̃\

/\bʁə.lɑ̃\/ noun

The verdict

“brelan” is uncommon French (frequency #71,309 among 4,251 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#71,309
frequency rank, French
4,251
“B” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Jeu de cartes où l’on ne donne que trois cartes à chaque joueur.

Corpus desk

Index FR-brelan · brelan · French

brelan · rank #71,309 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #71,309
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,251
  • PHOTO-FINISH breakdance

Nearest frequency peer: breakdance (-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 « brelan »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « brelan » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for brelan
PropertyValue
Headwordbrelan
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bʁə.lɑ̃\
Letters6
Frequency rank#71,309
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « brelan » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.brelantombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « breakdance » (#71,308), « brahmanes » (#71,307), « brocanteur » (#71,311). Parmi 4,251 lemmes en « B », « brelan » est au #71,309. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

brelan is uncommon French at frequency #71,309 among 4,251 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \bʁə.lɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.

brelan doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists 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 brelan, spelled B-R-E-L-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Jeu de cartes où l’on ne donne que trois cartes à chaque joueur.
  2. 2
    Trois cartes semblables détenues par un joueur dans ce jeu.
  3. 3
    Trois cartes semblables détenues par un joueur dans d’autres jeux de cartes.
  4. 4
    Groupe de trois, trio.
  5. 5
    Lieu où l’on joue habituellement, table à jeu.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Jouer au brelan. — Caver au brelan.
  2. Si deux joueurs abattent un brelan, celui de la valeur la plus haute l’emporte. Celui toutefois, qui a la chance d’obtenir un brelan de Valets, dénommé le favori, l’emporte sur tous les autres brelans, même ceux des As, des Rois ou des Dames.

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

How do you spell "brelan"?
"brelan" is spelled B-R-E-L-A-N. The IPA pronunciation is \bʁə.lɑ̃\.
What does "brelan" mean?
As a noun, "brelan" means: Jeu de cartes où l’on ne donne que trois cartes à chaque joueur.
How do you pronounce "brelan"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "brelan" is \bʁə.lɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "brelan" come from?
"brelan" 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 "brelan", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list