cabestan
\ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\
The verdict
“cabestan” is uncommon French (frequency #76,391 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,391
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Système tournant dont l’axe vertical permet, en enroulant un câble, de déployer une force très importante.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cabestan · cabestan · French
cabestan · rank #76,391 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #76,391
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cabochons
Nearest frequency peer: cabochons (+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 « cabestan »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- béluga
béluga
23,613 corpus weight
- cabestan
cabestan
23,610 corpus weight
- cabochons
cabochons
23,609 corpus weight
- calanque
calanque
23,608 corpus weight
- calcinée
calcinée
23,607 corpus weight
- calmait
calmait
23,605 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cabestan » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| 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) |
Longue queue: rang de « cabestan » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cabestan is uncommon French at frequency #76,391 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.bɛs.tɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cabestan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
J.-T. Maston avait vissé son crochet dans la lisse de la dunette, et il aurait fallu un cabestan pour l’en arracher.
Un de ses hommes, qui s’était écrasé deux doigts en tournant un cabestan, n’avait obtenu que cinq mille francs, mais c’étaient des doigts de la main gauche.
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 "cabestan"?
What does "cabestan" mean?
How do you pronounce "cabestan"?
What language does "cabestan" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cabestan", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).