cabestan
\ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\
The verdict
“cabestan” is an uncommon French word, ranked #76,391 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #76,391
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Système tournant dont l’axe vertical permet, en enroulant un câble, de déployer une force très importante.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cabestan |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #76,391 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cabestan” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for cabestan is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #76,391 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
cabestan doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is cabestan, spelled C-A-B-E-S-T-A-N.
Definition
- 1Système tournant dont l’axe vertical permet, en enroulant un câble, de déployer une force très importante.
- 2Treuil destiné à étarquer les drisses ou à border les écoutes de voile.
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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Using “cabestan”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-A-B-E-S-T-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.