calame
\ka.lam\
The verdict
“calame” is uncommon French (frequency #71,323 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #71,323
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Roseau taillé pour l’écriture, soit utilisé avec l'encre sur papyrus, parchemin, etc., soit à sec pour créer des impressions sur argile, et encore utilisé en calligraphie.
Corpus desk
Index FR-calame · calame · French
calame · rank #71,323 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #71,323
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cabochon
Nearest frequency peer: cabochon (-2 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 « calame »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- buvable
buvable
28,684 corpus weight
- buvard
buvard
28,683 corpus weight
- cabochon
cabochon
28,680 corpus weight
- calame
calame
28,678 corpus weight
- campait
campait
28,674 corpus weight
- campée
campée
28,673 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « calame » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | calame |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.lam\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #71,323 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « calame » en français
Rare enough to double-check
calame is uncommon French at frequency #71,323 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.lam\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
calame has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is calame, spelled C-A-L-A-M-E.
Definition
- 1Roseau taillé pour l’écriture, soit utilisé avec l'encre sur papyrus, parchemin, etc., soit à sec pour créer des impressions sur argile, et encore utilisé en calligraphie.
- 2Plume, stylo, voire style d’un auteur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how calame appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Pour écrire les mots comme les nombres, ils utilisaient des calames, qui consistaient en une tige de roseau taillée au couteau, qu’ils pressaient dans des plaquettes d’argile habituellement grandes comme la paume d’une main. Cela donnait des petites encores de forme de coins ou clous — cuneus en latin, d’où le nom d’écriture cunéiforme.
Près de lui, sur une table basse, calame et encrier, une lampe éteinte, et son livre ouvert à la première page, demeurée blanche.
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 "calame", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).