catharsis
\ka.taʁ.sis\
The verdict
“catharsis” is uncommon French (frequency #52,557 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,557
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Purification des passions (selon Aristote) chez le spectateur d’une représentation dramatique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-catharsis · catharsis · French
catharsis · rank #52,557 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #52,557
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cathare
Nearest frequency peer: cathare (-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 « catharsis »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Carmelo
Carmelo
47,449 corpus weight
- cartonner
cartonner
47,448 corpus weight
- Caruso
Caruso
47,447 corpus weight
- cathare
cathare
47,445 corpus weight
- catharsis
catharsis
47,444 corpus weight
- chablais
chablais
47,439 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « catharsis » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | catharsis |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ka.taʁ.sis\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #52,557 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « catharsis » en français
Rare enough to double-check
catharsis is uncommon French at frequency #52,557 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ka.taʁ.sis\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for catharsis in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is catharsis, spelled C-A-T-H-A-R-S-I-S.
Definition
- 1Purification des passions (selon Aristote) chez le spectateur d’une représentation dramatique.
- 2Thérapie utilisant l’extériorisation des traumatismes vécus.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how catharsis appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La catharsis fait intervenir une représentation d’un acte réprimé (par la morale, voire par la Loi) ainsi que sa punition, et c’est cette représentation qui dégoûte le spectateur de sa passion.
Ce qui a été réprimé veut se libérer, manifeste le besoin de s’exprimer : c’est la catharsis.
Synonyms
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 "catharsis", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).