cercle

/\sɛʁkl\/ noun

By · Reviewed against Wiktionary & Hunspell sources ·

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#2,463

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

16

similar word pairs

cercle is aFrenchnoun. It means: Dans un plan euclidien, lieu de tous les points équidistants d’un point donné appelé le centre du cercle. La distance au centre s’appelle le rayon. Pronounced \sɛʁkl\. It ranks #2,463 in French word frequency. Often confused with cycle and certe.

Key facts for cercle
PropertyValue
Headwordcercle
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɛʁkl\
Letters6
Frequency rank#2,463
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs16
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of cercle in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for cercle is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɛʁkl\. Corpus data places it at rank #2,463 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 18 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for cercle, with forms such as "ccercle", "cecrle", and "cerccle". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 16 confusable-pair relationships, "cycle", "certe", "cerne", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is cercle, spelled C-E-R-C-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Dans un plan euclidien, lieu de tous les points équidistants d’un point donné appelé le centre du cercle. La distance au centre s’appelle le rayon.
  2. 2
    Ligne circulaire, circonférence.
  3. 3
    Toute pièce de métal ou d’autre matière, formant un cercle, qu’on met autour d’une chose pour la serrer, la lier ou l’orner.
  4. 4
    Sorte de moule sans fond de forme cylindrique, servant à confectionner des gâteaux ou des entrées.
  5. 5
    Cerceau de tonneau, de cuve.
  6. 6
    Tonneau ; cuve
  7. 7
    Objet ou instrument de forme circulaire.
  8. 8
    Ligne circulaire fictive qui sert à représenter le mouvement des astres, la succession des saisons, les divisions de la sphère, etc.
  9. 9
    Toute disposition d’objets ou de personnes qui offre à peu près la figure d’une circonférence.
  10. 10
    Réunion ou assemblée d’un petit nombre de personnes ayant les mêmes idées, les mêmes goûts ou partageant la même activité.
  11. 11
    Association dont les membres se réunissent pour des activités communes.
  12. 12
    Endroit où se retrouvent des étudiants dans un but festif, bibitif et culturel.
  13. 13
    Domaine, étendue, limites.
  14. 14
    District administratif.
  15. 15
    Regroupement d’États du Saint-Empire romain germanique ; subdivision de l’Allemagne et de l’Autriche (en allemand : Kreis).
  16. 16
    Cycle.
  17. 17
    Une des neuf zones de l’Enfer imaginé par Dante Alighieri dans la Divine Comédie.
  18. 18
    Symbole autochtone.

Synonyms

rondcénacle

This word in other languages

English(English)Spanish(Español)Portuguese(Português)German(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ccercle,cecrle,cerccle,cercel,cerclle,cerlce,cerrcle,crecle,ecrcle

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cercle

Misspelling Variants of "cercle"

ccercle7cecrle6cerccle7cercel6cerclle7cerlce6cerrcle7crecle6
Misspelling Variants of "cercle"

Frequency rank: #2,463 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cercle"?
"cercle" is spelled C-E-R-C-L-E. The IPA pronunciation is \sɛʁkl\.
What does "cercle" mean?
As a noun, "cercle" means: Dans un plan euclidien, lieu de tous les points équidistants d’un point donné appelé le centre du cercle. La distance au centre s’appelle le rayon.
What words are commonly confused with "cercle"?
"cercle" is commonly confused with "cycle", "certe", "cerne". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cercle"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cercle" is \sɛʁkl\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cercle" come from?
"cercle" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

All "C" wordsABCDEFGHIJKL

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Words: C

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Confusable Pairs

Commonly confused words

Spelling Guides

Tips & reference

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.