cafétéria

\ka.fe.te.ʁja\

/\ka.fe.te.ʁja\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“cafétéria” has 13 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #25,578. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#25,578
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
13
tracked misspellings

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Établissement ouvert au public ayant pour principale vocation la consommation de café et autres boissons ou prendre un repas léger.

Corpus desk

Index FR-cafeteria · cafétéria · French

cafétéria · rank #25,578 · 13 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #25,578
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 13 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH cacahuète

Nearest frequency peer: cacahuète (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « cafétéria »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « cafétéria » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for cafétéria
PropertyValue
Headwordcafétéria
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ka.fe.te.ʁja\
Letters9
Frequency rank#25,578
Misspellings tracked13
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « cafétéria »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).cafétériase place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « cacahuète » (#25,577), « calife » (#25,579), « California » (#25,580). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « cafétéria » est au #25,578. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 13 spelling variants around cafétéria (IPA \ka.fe.te.ʁja\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #25,578 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

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

  1. 1
    Établissement ouvert au public ayant pour principale vocation la consommation de café et autres boissons ou prendre un repas léger.
  2. 2
    Grand local d’un établissement d’enseignement ou autre où on peut manger son propre repas ou des repas servis sur place à un comptoir.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. On les croise dans les cafétérias, on les voit errer dans les bâtiments, fréquenter assidument la moindre réunion, tout heureux de trouver un siège où se poser.
  2. La cafétéria était bruyante et animée. Je me suis mis en file pour le café.

Synonyms

cafét’cafèt’cafètecafétaria

This word in other languages

cafeteria(English)cafetería(Español)Cafeteria(Deutsch)

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.

acfétéria2cafeteria2caffétéria1caftééria2cafétréia2caféttéria1cafétéira2cafétérai2
Edit distance from "cafétéria"

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"?
"cafétéria" is spelled C-A-F-É-T-É-R-I-A. The IPA pronunciation is \ka.fe.te.ʁja\.
What does "cafétéria" mean?
As a noun, "cafétéria" means: Établissement ouvert au public ayant pour principale vocation la consommation de café et autres boissons ou prendre un repas léger.
What are common misspellings of "cafétéria"?
Common misspellings include "acfétéria", "cafeteria", "caffétéria", "caftééria", "cafétréia". The correct spelling is "cafétéria".
How do you pronounce "cafétéria"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cafétéria" is \ka.fe.te.ʁja\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cafétéria" come from?
"cafétéria" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "cafétéria", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

cacahuète#25,577bretonnes#25,573boursière#25,568bijoutier#25,567

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (13 here; floor ≥5).

bruyants13 variantsbrasseries13 variantsbranchée13 variantschoquante13 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list