cantou
French, noun
cantou is spelled C-A-N-T-O-U (6 letters) and appears about once in every 50 million words in written French, the 223,977th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Cantou is a French masculine noun meaning “more or less monumental fireplace typical of farms in the southwest of France” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, CANTOU is a different word: “initialism of centre d'activités naturelles tirées d'occupations…”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Grande cheminée qu’on retrouve dans le Massif central et le sud-ouest de la France”.
What does cantou mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinemore or less monumental fireplace typical of farms in the southwest of France
noun
- 1
masculineinitialism of centre d'activités naturelles tirées d'occupations utiles
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Grande cheminée qu’on retrouve dans le Massif central et le sud-ouest de la France. 2. Espace qui entoure cette cheminée. 3. Espace réservé aux visites des personnes atteintes de troubles neurologiques dans les établissements spécialisés.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of cantou
- cantous plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is cantou in French?
cantou appears about once in every 50 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).