capitaine

/\ka.pi.tɛn\/ noun

Letters

9 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,387

in French word usage

Misspellings

12

tracked variants

Confusables

3

similar word pairs

capitaine is aFrenchnoun. It means: Grade d’officier, le plus élevé en grade des officiers subalternes. Ce grade correspond à celui de lieutenant de vaisseau dans la Marine nationale française. Le code OTAN : OF-2. Dans la Marine nat... Pronounced \ka.pi.tɛn\. It ranks #1,387 in French word frequency. Often confused with captain and capitale.

Key facts for capitaine
PropertyValue
Headwordcapitaine
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ka.pi.tɛn\
Letters9
Frequency rank#1,387
Misspellings tracked12
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of capitaine in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for capitaine is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ka.pi.tɛn\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,387 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for capitaine, with forms such as "acpitaine", "caiptaine", and "capiatine". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "captain", "capitale", "capitaines", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is capitaine, spelled C-A-P-I-T-A-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Grade d’officier, le plus élevé en grade des officiers subalternes. Ce grade correspond à celui de lieutenant de vaisseau dans la Marine nationale française. Le code OTAN : OF-2. Dans la Marine nationale : Capitaine de corvette, de frégate, de vaisseau, officiers de marine dont les grades équivalent respectivement à ceux de commandant, lieutenant-colonel, colonel dans l'armée de terre.
  2. 2
    Officier qui porte ce grade.
  3. 3
    Capitaine de pavillon : commandant du bâtiment à bord duquel est embarqué l’amiral.
  4. 4
    Capitaine d’armes : → voir armes
  5. 5
    Grade d’officier des Forces armées canadiennes.
  6. 6
    Gouverneur d'une résidence royale et des terres qui en dépendaient.
  7. 7
    Officier chargé autrefois de tout ce qui regardait la chasse dans une circonscription déterminée.
  8. 8
    Officier qui commande un bâtiment marchand.
  9. 9
    Capitaine de port. Fonctionnaire chargé de l'administration et de la sécurité des ports de commerce et de pêche.
  10. 10
    Chef militaire.
  11. 11
    Dans les sports collectifs, celui ou celle qui commande son équipe sur le terrain.
  12. 12
    Nom d’usage du poisson Polydactylus quadrifilis.
  13. 13
    Synonyme de perche du Nil (poisson).
  14. 14
    Nom donné aux poissons du genre Lethrinus.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: acpitaine,caiptaine,capiatine,capitaien,capitainne,capitanie,capitiane,capittaine,cappitaine,captiaine,ccapitaine,cpaitaine

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for capitaine

Misspelling Variants of "capitaine"

acpitaine9caiptaine9capiatine9capitaien9capitainne10capitanie9capitiane9capittaine10
Misspelling Variants of "capitaine"

Frequency rank: #1,387 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "capitaine"?
"capitaine" is spelled C-A-P-I-T-A-I-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ka.pi.tɛn\.
What does "capitaine" mean?
As a noun, "capitaine" means: Grade d’officier, le plus élevé en grade des officiers subalternes. Ce grade correspond à celui de lieutenant de vaisseau dans la Marine nationale française. Le code OTAN : OF-2. Dans la Marine nat...
What words are commonly confused with "capitaine"?
"capitaine" is commonly confused with "captain", "capitale", "capitaines". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "capitaine"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "capitaine" is \ka.pi.tɛn\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "capitaine" come from?
"capitaine" 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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.