cachalot
\ka.ʃa.lo\
The verdict
“cachalot” is uncommon French (frequency #57,142 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,142
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Espèce de mammifère marin, cétacé à dents à grosse tête carrée, de la famille des physétéridés.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cachalot · cachalot · French
cachalot · rank #57,142 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,142
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH calottes
Nearest frequency peer: calottes (+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 « cachalot »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- bécasse
bécasse
42,862 corpus weight
- Bénévent
Bénévent
42,861 corpus weight
- cachalot
cachalot
42,859 corpus weight
- calottes
calottes
42,858 corpus weight
- cancan
cancan
42,857 corpus weight
- candi
candi
42,856 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cachalot » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cachalot |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.ʃa.lo\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #57,142 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cachalot » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cachalot is uncommon French at frequency #57,142 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.ʃa.lo\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Espèce de mammifère marin, cétacé à dents à grosse tête carrée, de la famille des physétéridés.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for cachalot in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 cachalot, spelled C-A-C-H-A-L-O-T.
Definition
- 1Espèce de mammifère marin, cétacé à dents à grosse tête carrée, de la famille des physétéridés.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cachalot appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Pendant que sous la mer profonde Les cachalots et les requins Ces écumeurs géants de l’onde Libres dévorent le fretin Nous autres cloués à la rive Où la bourrasque a rejeté Notre barque un instant rétive Nous pleurons notre liberté.
Lorsque la marée se retire, on voit des écueils à perte de vue sortant des flots leurs dos de monstres, tout reluisants et blanchis d’écume, comme des cachalots gigantesques échoués.
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 "cachalot", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).