chat

/\ʃa\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,433

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

chat is aFrenchnoun. It means: Mammifère carnivore félin de taille moyenne, au museau court et arrondi, domestiqué, apprivoisé ou encore à l’état sauvage. Pronounced \ʃa\. It ranks #1,433 in French word frequency. Often confused with Ct and cia.

Key facts for chat
PropertyValue
Headwordchat
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʃa\
Letters4
Frequency rank#1,433
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for chat is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʃa\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,433 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for chat, with forms such as "caht", "cchat", and "chatt". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Ct", "cia", "che", 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 chat, spelled C-H-A-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mammifère carnivore félin de taille moyenne, au museau court et arrondi, domestiqué, apprivoisé ou encore à l’état sauvage.
  2. 2
    Individu mâle de cet animal.
  3. 3
    Félin.
  4. 4
    Synonyme de poisson-chat commun.
  5. 5
    Synonyme de loup : jeu d’enfants où un des participants appelé chat doit toucher un de ses camarades qui devient le chat à son tour.
  6. 6
    Instrument à branches de fer élastiques et pointues, dont on se sert pour visiter l’âme d’une pièce de canon, afin de découvrir les chambres qui s’y trouvent.
  7. 7
    Vulve ou vagin, chatte.
  8. 8
    Palatine, sorte de fourrure que les femmes portent au cou.
  9. 9
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Comme le léopard, il est représenté passant et de face.
  10. 10
    Position de yoga à quatre pattes.
  11. 11
    Défaut, corps étranger, dans un bloc d'ardoise qui le rend impropre à être fendu et utiliser.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: caht,cchat,chatt,chhat,chta,hcat

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for chat

Misspelling Variants of "chat"

caht4cchat5chatt5chhat5chta4hcat4
Misspelling Variants of "chat"

Frequency rank: #1,433 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "chat"?
"chat" is spelled C-H-A-T. The IPA pronunciation is \ʃa\.
What does "chat" mean?
As a noun, "chat" means: Mammifère carnivore félin de taille moyenne, au museau court et arrondi, domestiqué, apprivoisé ou encore à l’état sauvage.
What words are commonly confused with "chat"?
"chat" is commonly confused with "Ct", "cia", "che". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "chat"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "chat" is \ʃa\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "chat" come from?
"chat" 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:

Explore PlainSpell

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