cairn
\kɛʁn\
The verdict
“cairn” is uncommon French (frequency #55,116 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,116
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tumulus de pierres au-dessus d’une sépulture.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cairn · cairn · French
cairn · rank #55,116 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,116
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cadi
Nearest frequency peer: cadi (-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 « cairn »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- cachots
cachots
44,888 corpus weight
- cadastral
cadastral
44,887 corpus weight
- cadi
cadi
44,886 corpus weight
- cairn
cairn
44,885 corpus weight
- caller
caller
44,884 corpus weight
- cambouis
cambouis
44,883 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cairn » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cairn |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kɛʁn\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #55,116 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cairn » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cairn is uncommon French at frequency #55,116 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɛʁn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for cairn in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is cairn, spelled C-A-I-R-N.
Definition
- 1Tumulus de pierres au-dessus d’une sépulture.
- 2Monticule de pierres pour marquer un endroit.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cairn appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
En Écosse et dans les Orcades, la plupart de ces pierres portent des noms historiques et sont considérées comme des tombeaux. Les montagnards révèrent encore la pierre d’Ossian (Clachan Ossian) ; Ce fut un grand scandale quand le major Wade déplaça ce monument sacré, qui se trouvait dans la ligne d’une route militaire. Les montagnards indignés vinrent en…
À quelque distance de là, sur la crête d’un mamelon solitaire, se dresse le Bé, le tombeau de Gwer. C’est un amoncellement de roches schisteuses qui en soutiennent une autre, plus massive. Sous ce cairn sauvage fut creusée la fosse où l’on coucha Gewr, le Gargantua des Bretons. On dut plier en neuf son immense cadavre pour l’y faire entrer.
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 "cairn", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).