catalyse
\ka.ta.liz\
The verdict
“catalyse” is uncommon French (frequency #55,122 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,122
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Action de certains corps ou composés qui, par leur seule présence, facilitent la transformation d'un réactif sans être eux-mêmes modifiés lors d'une réaction chimique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-catalyse · catalyse · French
catalyse · rank #55,122 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,122
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH carriole
Nearest frequency peer: carriole (-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 « catalyse »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- caractérisa…
caractérisait
44,882 corpus weight
- carnassiers
carnassiers
44,881 corpus weight
- carriole
carriole
44,880 corpus weight
- catalyse
catalyse
44,879 corpus weight
- cathode
cathode
44,878 corpus weight
- censures
censures
44,877 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « catalyse » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | catalyse |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.ta.liz\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #55,122 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « catalyse » en français
Rare enough to double-check
catalyse is uncommon French at frequency #55,122 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.ta.liz\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
catalyse doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is catalyse, spelled C-A-T-A-L-Y-S-E.
Definition
- 1Action de certains corps ou composés qui, par leur seule présence, facilitent la transformation d'un réactif sans être eux-mêmes modifiés lors d'une réaction chimique.
- 2Élément du texte qui accélère, retarde, relance le discours.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how catalyse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La fonction constante de la catalyse est donc, en tout état de cause, une fonction phatique (pour reprendre le mot de Jakobson) : elle maintient le contact entre le narrateur et le narrataire,
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 "catalyse", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).