carotène
\ka.ʁɔ.tɛn\
The verdict
“carotène” is uncommon French (frequency #80,968 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,968
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pigment des plantes chlorophylliennes, il s'agit d'un hydrocarbure terpénique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-carotene · carotène · French
carotène · rank #80,968 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,968
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH castrés
Nearest frequency peer: castrés (+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 « carotène »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- canidés
canidés
19,037 corpus weight
- cannibal
cannibal
19,036 corpus weight
- carafes
carafes
19,035 corpus weight
- carotène
carotène
19,033 corpus weight
- castrés
castrés
19,032 corpus weight
- causèrent
causèrent
19,030 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « carotène » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | carotène |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.ʁɔ.tɛn\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #80,968 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « carotène » en français
Rare enough to double-check
carotène is uncommon French at frequency #80,968 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.ʁɔ.tɛn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Pigment des plantes chlorophylliennes, il s'agit d'un hydrocarbure terpénique.".
Zero misspellings are on record for carotène in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is carotène, spelled C-A-R-O-T-È-N-E.
Definition
- 1Pigment des plantes chlorophylliennes, il s'agit d'un hydrocarbure terpénique.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how carotène appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Indépendamment des chlorophylles, a et b, deux autres pigments sont toujours fixés sur les chloroplastes, le carotène et la xanthophylle.
Il me fallait chercher la définition du mot carotène puisque je tenais pour ridicules ses procédés de relaxation et aussi parce que je posais trop de questions. – Tu le trouves ? Comme je tardais, elle se leva. – Mais lis donc… La page est marquée. C’est là… « Carotène, le pigment auquel la carotte doit sa teinte éclatante et son action désintoxicante… »
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 "carotène", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).