cafétéria
\ka.fe.te.ʁja\
The verdict
“cafétéria” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #25,578 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #25,578
- frequency rank, French
- 9
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Établissement ouvert au public ayant pour principale vocation la consommation de café et autres boissons ou prendre un repas léger.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cafétéria |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.fe.te.ʁja\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #25,578 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cafétéria” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for cafétéria is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ka.fe.te.ʁja\. Corpus data places it at rank #25,578 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.
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for cafétéria, with forms such as "acfétéria", "cafeteria", and "caffétéria". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
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 cafétéria, spelled C-A-F-É-T-É-R-I-A.
Definition
- 1Établissement ouvert au public ayant pour principale vocation la consommation de café et autres boissons ou prendre un repas léger.
- 2Grand local d’un établissement d’enseignement ou autre où on peut manger son propre repas ou des repas servis sur place à un comptoir.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acfétéria,cafeteria,caffétéria,caftééria,cafétréia,caféttéria,cafétéira,cafétérai,cafétérria,caféétria,caéftéria,ccafétéria,cfaétéria
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cafétéria - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "cafétéria"?
What does "cafétéria" mean?
What are common misspellings of "cafétéria"?
How do you pronounce "cafétéria"?
What language does "cafétéria" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “cafétéria”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-A-F-É-T-É-R-I-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ka.fe.te.ʁja\ (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.