cateau
\ka.to\
The verdict
“cateau” is uncommon French (frequency #75,483 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #75,483
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Catin, femme de mauvaise vie.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cateau · cateau · French
cateau · rank #75,483 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #75,483
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH category
Nearest frequency peer: category (+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 « cateau »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- casanier
casanier
24,521 corpus weight
- casserait
casserait
24,520 corpus weight
- cateau
cateau
24,518 corpus weight
- category
category
24,517 corpus weight
- CDL
CDL
24,516 corpus weight
- ceri
ceri
24,514 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cateau » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cateau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.to\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #75,483 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cateau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cateau is uncommon French at frequency #75,483 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.to\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Catin, femme de mauvaise vie.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for cateau, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is cateau, spelled C-A-T-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Catin, femme de mauvaise vie.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cateau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Lui ! ah ! bien, il faudrait être une fameuse cateau !…
Je m’en doutais que vous fricassiez ensemble !… j’aurais dû le foutre dehors depuis longtemps… nom de dieu de cateau !
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 "cateau", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).