chapeau

\ʃa.po\

/\ʃa.po\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“chapeau” has 9 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #3,390. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#3,390
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
9
tracked misspellings
11
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Coiffe d’homme ou de femme, plus ou moins rigide, avec des bords.

Corpus desk

Index FR-chapeau · chapeau · French

chapeau · rank #3,390 · 9 variants · 11 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #3,390
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 11 pairs
  • VAR-MID 9 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH CH

Nearest frequency peer: CH (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « chapeau »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « chapeau » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

chapeau vs chapel
71% similar
chapeau vs château
71% similar
chapeau vs châteaux
63% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for chapeau
PropertyValue
Headwordchapeau
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʃa.po\
Letters7
Frequency rank#3,390
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs11
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « chapeau »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.chapeause place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « CH » (#3,389), « Chris » (#3,391), « casser » (#3,388). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « chapeau » est au #3,390. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 9 spelling variants around chapeau (IPA \ʃa.po\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #3,390 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 14 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for chapeau, with forms such as "cahpeau", "cchapeau", and "chaepau". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "chapel", "château", "châteaux", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is chapeau, spelled C-H-A-P-E-A-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Coiffe d’homme ou de femme, plus ou moins rigide, avec des bords.
  2. 2
    Partie supérieure ronde de certains types de champignons appelée aussi tête ou carpophore.
  3. 3
    Lignes de texte, mises en valeur, qui introduisent un article de journal ou de magazine, ou un texte dans un manuel scolaire.
  4. 4
    Chose qui a un rapport de forme ou de destination avec un chapeau.
  5. 5
    Coiffe d’un axe, d’une extrémité d’une pièce mécanique.
  6. 6
    Pièce de bois dur sur la tête des bittes.
  7. 7
    Sorte de truble.
  8. 8
    Marc qui reste au fond d’un alambic.
  9. 9
    Trait demi-circulaire, nommé aussi liaison.
  10. 10
    Accent circonflexe.
  11. 11
    Chapeau de cardinal, dignité de cardinal.
  12. 12
    Se dit d'une variable surmontée d’un accent circonflexe.
  13. 13
    Pièce de bois servant de plafond aux galeries de mine.
  14. 14
    Élément de protection couvrant la sortie de toit d’une cheminée.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Notre ami, fabricant de drap, a découvert le moyen de retrouver l’indigo des vieux habits bleus, et il voulait vous voir comme un grand phénomène, car vous avez dit : Le chapeau, c’est l’homme.
  2. Soit prudence ou hasard, le fugitif avait le front entièrement couvert par un chapeau qui lui tombait sur les yeux.

Synonyms

galuregalurincouvre-chefpileustêtechapô

This word in other languages

hat(English)sombrero(Español)Hut(Deutsch)chapéu(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • cahpeau
  • cchapeau
  • chaepau
  • chapaeu
  • chapeua
  • chappeau
  • chhapeau
  • chpaeau
  • hcapeau

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of chapeau - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

cahpeau2cchapeau1chaepau2chapaeu2chapeua2chappeau1chhapeau1chpaeau2
Edit distance from "chapeau"

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 "chapeau"?
"chapeau" is spelled C-H-A-P-E-A-U. The IPA pronunciation is \ʃa.po\.
What does "chapeau" mean?
As a noun, "chapeau" means: Coiffe d’homme ou de femme, plus ou moins rigide, avec des bords.
What words are commonly confused with "chapeau"?
"chapeau" is commonly confused with "chapel", "château", "châteaux". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "chapeau"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "chapeau" is \ʃa.po\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "chapeau" come from?
"chapeau" 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 "chapeau", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

attirer#3,381dizaine#3,399aspects#3,380déchets#3,400

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).

destin9 variantsdépasse9 variantsvoyant9 variantsMaurice9 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list