calembour
\ka.lɑ̃.buʁ\
The verdict
“calembour” is uncommon French (frequency #60,617 among 257,141 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,617
- frequency rank, French
- 257,141
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Jeu de mots fondé sur l’homophonie et la polysémie.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | calembour |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.lɑ̃.buʁ\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #60,617 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “calembour” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
calembour is uncommon French at frequency #60,617 among 257,141 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.lɑ̃.buʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Jeu de mots fondé sur l’homophonie et la polysémie.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for calembour, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is calembour, spelled C-A-L-E-M-B-O-U-R.
Definition
- 1Jeu de mots fondé sur l’homophonie et la polysémie.
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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Using “calembour”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-A-L-E-M-B-O-U-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ka.lɑ̃.buʁ\ (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
Other uncommon French words near this rank
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.