casbah

\kaz.ba\

/\kaz.ba\/ noun

The verdict

“casbah” is uncommon French (frequency #51,950 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#51,950
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Forteresse d’une ville du Maghreb ou du Levant.

Corpus desk

Index FR-casbah · casbah · French

casbah · rank #51,950 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #51,950
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH carrossier

Nearest frequency peer: carrossier (-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 « casbah »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « casbah » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for casbah
PropertyValue
Headwordcasbah
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kaz.ba\
Letters6
Frequency rank#51,950
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « casbah » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.casbahtombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « carrossier » (#51,949), « centralisés » (#51,951), « Caribbean » (#51,947). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « casbah » est au #51,950. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

casbah is uncommon French at frequency #51,950 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kaz.ba\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

casbah doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is casbah, spelled C-A-S-B-A-H.

Definition

  1. 1
    Forteresse d’une ville du Maghreb ou du Levant.
  2. 2
    Médina, vieille-ville de ces villes.
  3. 3
    Maison.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how casbah appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Au programme de ce voyage familial (enfant à partir de 6 ans), une rando chamelière, des nuits sahariennes en bivouac au cœur des dunes, une autre dans une casbah traditionnelle dans la palmeraie de Skoura.
  2. L’Angoulême noble cria contre l’introduction d’un giaour dans la casbah, car le salon de Mme de Bargeton était le cénacle d’une société pure de tout alliage.

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

How do you spell "casbah"?
"casbah" is spelled C-A-S-B-A-H. The IPA pronunciation is \kaz.ba\.
What does "casbah" mean?
As a noun, "casbah" means: Forteresse d’une ville du Maghreb ou du Levant.
How do you pronounce "casbah"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "casbah" is \kaz.ba\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "casbah" come from?
"casbah" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "casbah", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list